Brian Burke, at The Blogs

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Feb 28, 2022, 9:06 AM

We Must Stand With Ukraine

One of the most consequential geopolitical events of the twenty-first century is unfolding in Ukraine. Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked invasion of its sovereign neighbor not only has ramifications for the forty four million people of the former Soviet state but the entire world. Just a...

Oct 28, 2021, 12:34 AM

Forward, Not On

This week marks three years since the horrific events of October 27, 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. Trying to process the tragedy was one of the things that led me into counseling that fall. It was my first experience of really reaching...

Sep 6, 2021, 11:29 AM

Can it really be a happy and sweet new year?

As the Hebrew year 5782 begins, I find myself wondering whether the traditional greeting of “shanah tovah u’metukah,” a happy and sweet new year, is truly applicable in our world today. Americans are torn apart by political polarization that threatens our social cohesion and democratic...

Aug 31, 2021, 11:24 PM

When the Afghanistan chaos became personal

U.S. Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force - Crisis Response - Central Command, provide assistance during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 20. U.S. service members are assisting the Department of State with an orderly drawdown of designated personnel in Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Nicholas Guevara)

The chaos of the past few weeks as the United States withdrew from Afghanistan became personal for me last Friday. A little over a week after my most recent blog post was published, I received an email through the contact form on the Chronicle/Times of...

Aug 19, 2021, 10:13 AM

The Torah on my mind amidst the Afghanistan horror

There are two pieces of Torah that have been on my mind over the past few days as the scenes of horror in Afghanistan unfold. He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say: You do not need to finish the work, but neither are you free to...

Jul 1, 2021, 1:52 AM

The strange Jewish bedfellows of 2021

A small yet vocal segment of young and supposedly progressive Jews see Israel not as an example of Jewish self-determination and liberation rooted in thousands of years of history and tradition, but as an inherently racist and colonialist state that is the root cause of...

Jun 18, 2021, 7:47 PM

The unlikely ally American Jews need

For the first time since 2009, Israel has a prime minister not named Benjamin Netanyahu. Nearly three months after the March 23 election, a new government was approved in the Knesset by a razor-thin 60-59 vote on June 13 (one Knesset member abstained). At the...

May 24, 2021, 10:15 PM

My fellow Americans, your silence is deafening

There has been a dramatic upsurge in antisemitism amidst the recent bout of conflict between Israel and Hamas. Across social media, at anti-Israel rallies, and while simply living openly in the twenty-first century, Jews are under attack, perhaps most visibly in this country. And few...

May 20, 2021, 12:36 AM

I am an American Jew. I am a proud Zionist. I am a member of Gen Z. I was born after the height of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process of the 1990s and was a young child during the Second Intifada of the early 2000s. I...

Jan 8, 2021, 1:50 AM

It Happened Here

The scenes could have easily been from Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the Arab Spring, or from the capitals of Eastern Europe as the Iron Curtain fell. It looked like pro-democracy masses assembling to bring down a South American military junta. However, what happened on January...

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About Me

Brian Burke is a Pittsburgh native and 2019 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied political science, history, and Jewish studies. In college, he was involved with Hillel and the David Project, holding several leadership positions including president of the Pitt Hillel Jewish Student Union in 2018. Like many early 20-somethings, he is figuring out what comes next amidst the health and economic uncertainties of these times. Follow him on Twitter @BrianBurkePGH.

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