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Talyah Ginsberg

Aug 6, 2026, 6:15 PM

An Australian Visa, a South African Alibi and an Israeli Home

My first trip abroad on an Israeli passport nearly ended at Ben Gurion. Sydney gave me back family, confidence and parts of myself I had misplaced—until an Uber driver asked one ordinary question. The first surprise of my enormous Australian...

Aug 1, 2026, 11:42 AM

Australian judicial inquiry final report finds police failures but no justice

The reality of the recently released New South Wales (NSW) Croatian Six inquiry report is unmistakable: Australia's justice system fundamentally failed six men and their community. Ironically, it may have also failed itself. At the same time, the presiding judge, Justice...

Marina Rosenberg

Aug 1, 2026, 9:57 AM

Antisemitism is now the baseline, not a spike

On the last night of Hanukkah, a gunman opened fire on a candle-lighting celebration on Bondi Beach, killing Rabbi Eli Schlanger and fourteen others. I had been in Sydney just a week earlier for the first-ever J7 Task Force Against Antisemitism Summit...

Talyah Ginsberg

Jul 29, 2026, 9:37 AM

Maftir, Mikveh and the Seagulls Who Observed No Boundaries

My father is a courteous man. This is why, before beginning the maftir on Shabbat, he did not turn around and announce, “If the gentlemen conducting the parallel service would care to finish first, the rest of us can...

Talyah Ginsberg

Jul 25, 2026, 9:32 AM

With All Your Heart…

This week’s parashah, Va’etchanan, contains one of the best-known instructions in Judaism and, on close inspection, one of the most unreasonable. “You shall love Hashem your G‑D with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.” All...

Michael Gencher

Jul 23, 2026, 5:46 AM

The question I couldn’t answer

People gather outside the Adass Israel Synagogue, December 9, 2024, after a firebombing in Melbourne, Australia. (Con Chronis/AAP Image via AP)

For a long time, I assumed Australia's greatest challenge was recognizing antisemitism. Now, I think we see it, but rationalize it away before we confront it

Jul 20, 2026, 5:08 AM

Jews and Palestinians are modelling the cohesion Australia seeks

In September 2023, I travelled to Israel as Chair of New Israel Fund Australia. One day was spent in the West Bank with a Bedouin herding community near the illegal settlement in the north Jordan Valley of the West...

Talyah Ginsberg

Jul 20, 2026, 5:03 AM

Swastika on High Street, Hamsa on the Wall, Script That Refused to Behave

There are certain Friday rituals observed by Jewish women across continents and with wildly varying levels of spiritual enthusiasm: challah, candles, and enough food to sustain a small Balkan republic until Tuesday, even though only six people are coming....

Patricia Levinson

Jul 16, 2026, 5:17 AM

Celebrating My Independence 60 Years Ago Was Lifechanging

As I celebrated America's 250th Independence Day in Florida, I could not help but think back to my own celebration of independence 60 years ago. Escaping South Africa, a country then deeply embroiled in the cruelty of apartheid and seeking...

Jul 14, 2026, 11:05 AM

Halakha’s Kármán Line: Imagined and Real Jews in Space

Ilan Ramon, November 2001, NASA, https://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-107/images/high/KSC-02PP-0490.jpg, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ilan_Ramon,_NASA_photo_portrait_in_orange_suit.jpg, cropped

In the late 1960s or early 1970s, when Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof – the most prolific author of responsa in the American Reform movement – was asked for sources in Jewish law in preparation for “a discussion of the...

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