Stephen Daniel Arnoff, at The Blogs

Stephen Daniel Arnoff

Author, Teacher, and Community Leader

Apr 30, 2025, 4:53 PM

We live in an age of information overload and scarcity of wisdom. Even with the revolution promised by AI, much of our lives carried in our phones, and all variety of synthetic distractions addling our brains, memory remains one...

Apr 9, 2025, 8:52 PM

Praying with Our Feet

Former hostage Karina Ariev speaks at the start line of the Jerusalem Marathon, April 4, 2025. (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)

As two of my kids and I lined up for the 5K race at this year’s Jerusalem Marathon—part of a crowd of thousands—I wasn’t expecting to be stopped in my tracks before we even began. Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion...

Apr 3, 2025, 4:23 PM

You Really Need a Rabbi

Not long after I began my role as Executive Director of the 14th Street Y in 2007, my then-boss Robin Bernstein—CEO of the Educational Alliance—graciously introduced me to Harvey Schulweis, z”l. Harvey, a self-made business success and a legendary...

Mar 27, 2025, 2:45 PM

Joy Is the Radical, Obvious Thing

From left to right: Rabbi Dr. Pesach Schindler, Yizhak Jacobsen, and Rabbi Moses Tottenhaur, discussing plans for the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center campus. Used by permission of the Fucshberg Jerusalem Center.

A friend in the U.S. asked me this week what the atmosphere in Israel feels like right now. I paused, and then said something that’s lingered with me since: This is a joyless government in a dark time. We are...

Mar 12, 2025, 8:15 PM

Get Drunk on Virtue

Portrait of Charles Baudelaire. Used by permission of Wikimedia Creative Commons.

Some say Charles Baudelaire was the father of modern poetry. I say that he would have understood the poetry of Purim deeply. Many years ago, I composed the music to the Hebrew translation of a poem by Baudelaire entitled...

Mar 6, 2025, 12:43 PM

Find the Helpers, Pull the Espresso

Espresso, soda, cookie, and finding the helpers. Wikimedia Commons. Used with permission.

It started as a small, incidental thing—just a minor interaction at an airport coffee stand—but it got me thinking about something important. After nearly two weeks bouncing between Philadelphia, Miami, New York City, and Cleveland, I landed at Ben Gurion...

Feb 13, 2025, 2:59 PM

Jerusalem, Skinny Legs and All

Tom Robbins' 1990 Novel "Skinny Legs and All" offers a vision of Jerusalem worth believing. Book cover art used by permission of publisher, Bantam Books.

In the final scene of Skinny Legs and All, one of the magnificent novels of Tom Robbins, who died this week at 92, Boomer and Ellen Cherry have discovered a world not so different from one many of us...

Jan 30, 2025, 4:35 PM

A Change Is Gonna Come

A friend sent me Rolling Stone's 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time this morning. Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" lands at number one. Cooke was inspired by hearing Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and being...

Jan 23, 2025, 12:34 PM

The Crack-Up and the War

Photo portrait of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1929. Public domain.

Recently, in another forum, my colleague Rabbi Ed Rettig reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from F. Scott Fitzgerald. In his 1936 essay The Crack-Up, Fitzgerald wrote: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to...

Dec 12, 2024, 3:15 PM

Here’s to the Rabbis

We are privileged to have met with many rabbis and future rabbis from abroad this week, all part of the gathering of the Rabbinical Assembly in Jerusalem that ended today. When I see my colleagues whom I know from...

About Me

Dr. Stephen Daniel Arnoff is the CEO of the Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center and author of the book About Man and God and Law: The Spiritual Wisdom of Bob Dylan. Explore his teaching, writing, and community work at www.stephendanielarnoff.com.

Contact Me