The Problem with Jewish Education

I want to bring up an issue that everyone talks about but too few are concerned with and virtually nobody is willing to actually deal with in an old way: The Jewish education of our children. Since the release of the Pew Portrait of Jewish Americans in the...

Small Jewish Communities

I grew up in small-town America. Small-town life isn’t exactly as it is portrayed in the Rockwell paintings. Not everyone knows the business of everyone else. The sidewalks didn’t roll up every night, just from Friday afternoon until Monday morning. It is true that...

The Jewish Home Advantage

Please take a moment and do some time traveling with me. Specifically, I would like you to go back to those memories that say to your soul, “I am Jewish”.  What would you see, hear, taste and smell?    Perhaps you are transported back to your childhood...

Twenty-First Century Jews Need to “Think Small”

J remember an issue of Commentary Magazine which asked a cornucopia of Jewish leaders and thinkers “What will be the condition of the Jewish Community 50 years from now?” Out of the 70 respondents, all but a very few (most notably Jon D. Levenson, Jacob J. Schacter,...