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Nurit Gil

The report card no one sees

In Israel, I learned to measure my children’s education not only by their grades, but also by how they navigate the country, cook a meal – and deal with war

9/11

Orly Lavi Travish

Between memory and history

My Hebrew students weren’t alive on September 11, 2001. If memory is to survive as more than a date in a textbook, I have to teach them the vocabulary to pass it on

At the 9/11 memorial on the west side of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on September 11, 2023, many civilians came to commemorate the US Department of Defense staff and rescue workers who were killed in a terrorist attack 22 years ago. (iStock)

Gayle Meyers

Rushing forward, seized with fear

Crises like the terror attacks of 9/11 summon us with the trumpet of bravery and the still, small voice of love, as we write our stories with our deeds (Rosh Hashanah)

President Isaac Herzog at the President's Residence in Jerusalem, September 8, 2026. (Kobi Gideon / GPO)

Isaac Herzog

A Rosh Hashanah message to the Jewish people

After all the pain and longing, the majestic notes of the shofar carry three calls that bring us into a better future

Dan Moskovitz

Boy George goes to shul

The pop icon’s new song felt like a hug from a stranger. When he came to our synagogue, we finally got to hug him back

Image created by the author.

Talyah Ginsberg

‘One day’ is not a day of the week

Recently attuned to the risk that everything I postpone won’t eventually get its turn, I find myself willing to take the first steps to finding out how far I might go

Bighorn sheep (Valentina Gatewood / iStock)

How could a ram replace Isaac in the Akedah?

In a different reading of the biblical story, one crucial quality made it possible for an animal to be substituted for a person

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Sep 13, 2026, 1:03 PM

The Fauda Reality: Hamas, Hezbollah and Europe’s Hidden Front

The fifth season of Fauda commences with a disturbing scenario. A Hamas operative related to the October 7 attacks flees Gaza and hides in Marseille, where Israeli counterterrorism officials discover a larger network planning another attack. Following the events...

Sep 13, 2026, 1:01 PM

Why Intelligence Fails to Predict Revolutions

Nearly every major revolution of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries caught the international intelligence community off guard, not because there were no warning signs, but because intelligence systems struggle to translate social and psychological signals into a forecast of...

Jennifer Handel

Sep 13, 2026, 12:59 PM

Why Is This Rosh Hashanah Different From All Others?

I know. Wrong holiday. But as I sit here on the first full day of being 41, trying to make sense of the last 48 hours, it's the question that keeps coming back to me. Why is this Rosh Hashanah different...

Sep 13, 2026, 8:03 AM

9/11 Was the Warning. October 7 Was the Reminder

On October 7, 2023, I went to bed at 4:30 in the morning after a normal Friday night. A few hours later, I woke up to messages from a friend in Belgium. “Until you wake up, there’s a war all...

Sep 13, 2026, 5:00 AM

The Day of the Blast!

I wish all of you a Happy Yom Teru’ah, the Hebrew term for what is commonly called Rosh Hashanah–(lit. “head of the year”)–or the “Jewish New Year.” In fact, according to some Jewish traditions it is not so much...

Bernard P. Markowicz

Sep 13, 2026, 4:59 AM

Why Mike Huckabee Drew a Line in the West Bank

His campaign against violent settlers may reveal how American politics is beginning to constrain unconditional support for Israeli policy. The first post used settler violence to test Omer Bartov’s diagnosis of unequal power. The second asked whether Jews could live...

Silas Anastacio

Sep 13, 2026, 4:58 AM

Pre-Rosh Hashanah Celebration with Grupo Chaverim

In August, Grupo Chaverim hosted a Pre-Rosh Hashanah celebration for the NGO’s beneficiaries—affectionately called “friends”—along with their families, supporters, staff, and volunteers at Clube Hebraica in the Pinheiros neighborhood of São Paulo, Brazil. The afternoon was filled with connection,...

Ibrahim Mukherjee

Sep 13, 2026, 4:57 AM

On Healing and Cure.

The Cure 1. Al-Fātiḥah: Ruqyah, Not Metaphor The clearest place to begin is not with a herb but with revelation. In Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, a group of the Prophet’s Companions encountered a tribal chief who had been bitten by a snake or stung...

Sep 13, 2026, 4:56 AM

Will a Superintelligent AI Let Us Turn It Off?

Britain has just confronted a question that sounds almost embarrassingly simple: if an artificial intelligence system becomes dangerous, can we turn it off? On September 11, the British government opposed a proposal for a new “last-resort” power that would allow...

Sep 13, 2026, 4:55 AM

The Compass of Return

Suspended between the cosmic coronation of Rosh Hashanah and the austere reckoning of Yom Kippur sits Shabbat Shuva—the Sabbath of Return. Its name and character are drawn from the opening words of the Haftarah: "Return, O Israel, unto the...

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