Read more: Obama: World needs to confront rising anti-Semitism | The Times of Israel

The world needs to do a lot of things.

For a start, there’s global warming, worldwide poverty, nuclear proliferation, people trafficking, widespread hunger, new diseases and older ones, especially those now becoming resistant to antibiotics. There’s also endemic corruption, various power struggles and, of course, how can we not forget our all too fragile economic systems and world peace?

We have so many problems we don’t even know where to begin. Will our feeble attempts to make matters better turn out for the worse over time? Are we all just victims of blind circumstance or still masters of our fate?

The record would seem to suggest that our performance, thus far, has been somewhat less than stellar on every front and throughout so much of our time devoted to such matters. But why should this be? The myriad mind of Man, normally so inventive and resourceful in most instances, must surely be able to furnish solutions for all these contingencies? Or have we become so diminished by the situations presented to us, worn out with constant striving to provide answers for questions that may actually have none?

Perhaps our best move here might be to make maximum inroads into just one aspect of these difficulties and remedy that particular example to its very fullest extent. The success of such a venture might then embolden us to proceed much further, knowing that, within ourselves, we possess the capacity and creativity to resolve even more of the world’s many other pressing problems.

www.laxiankey.com – ‘ for those of us with better things to do.’

Holding on to preconceived ideas and responding in the most predictable fashion to matters of major import and far-reaching consequence will not combat antisemitism in any meaningful sense. The values and image of any belief system should never become so demonstrably stunted by the lack of imagination and forethought given to that which is most vital to us all. These are survival and the ability to live with whatever decisions and determinations we make in this life and then carry through to the next.