Ari Mittleman, at The Blogs

Oct 8, 2024, 6:34 PM

Dear ???, Our daughter is one month into pre-kindergarten as our nation is one month from this historic election. She will turn five as you prepare to mark the one-hundred-day mark of your new administration. Her birth was one of the first...

Sep 5, 2024, 11:01 PM

This December – Eye on Croatia

With the drama of the US presidential race, the tumultuous geopolitics of the Middle East and the tragic news from Gaza over the weekend, it is understandable to have overlooked potentially enormously consequential developments in Croatia over the last...

Jun 4, 2024, 6:25 PM

Goodbye Maldives. Hello Montenegro!

The author in Prcanj, Montenegro in May 2024.

Around the world, the first week of June is often considered the start of the summer tourism season. For many countries, tourism plays a role in a diversified economy. For some countries, tourism drives nearly the entire economy. In the case...

Oct 18, 2023, 2:21 PM

The power of music

Music has the unique power to evoke personal and collective emotion. It has featured prominently in pivotal moments dating to the earliest days of recorded Jewish history. Shortly after the exodus from Egypt, the newly freed slaves sang at the...

Mar 8, 2023, 6:16 PM

The Year Ahead for the IHRA

(Courtesy: International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Berlin, Germany)

In recently explaining the story of Purim to a non-Jewish colleague, I used the phrase “expect the unexpected.” At the most basic level, the Megillah is one plot twist after another. As Israel and world Jewish community celebrate the happiest...

Jan 2, 2023, 11:44 PM

Thessaloniki and Star Jones

Desecrated memorial in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Last week, a Holocaust memorial in Thessaloniki, Greece was desecrated with antisemitic spray paint. The memorial features a large menorah, Star of David and symbolic gravestones. Twice in 2018 and again in 2019 the memorial was vandalized. Before World War...

Nov 1, 2022, 9:10 PM

When hope and history rhyme

Before even knowing that hateful bile would very publicly visit motorists in Los Angeles, I knew going into Shabbat Bereishit that last week would be emotionally draining. Over the last three years, as the leaves fall from the trees and...

Sep 23, 2022, 10:53 PM

United We Stand (Divided We Fall)

The White House and Washington Monument.

As I powered up my phone after Shabbat three weeks ago, much to my surprise I found an email from the White House inviting me to the United We Stand Summit. Dr. Susan Rice, who leads the Domestic Policy Council,...

Aug 6, 2022, 11:25 AM

Reexamining Kosovo-Israel relations

Israeli diplomats should sit up and pay attention to the first Muslim majority nation – and the first European nation – to open an embassy in Jerusalem

May 26, 2022, 11:29 AM

Reflecting on Buffalo

PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images. Tops Supermarket in Buffalo, New York

In classrooms, at kitchen tables and throughout the halls of government, Americans are grappling with how to understand the massacre in Buffalo. Long overdue public conversations are beginning about how to take meaningful steps to combat violence borne from...

About Me

Ari Mittleman is a proud Jewish father and husband. He lives with his family in Pikesville, Maryland. As a native Pennsylvanian actively involved in the Jewish community, the tragedy in Pittsburgh compelled him to author his first book, Paths of the Righteous, by Gefen Publishing House.

Contact Me