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Michael Zoosman

May 6, 2026, 11:31 PM

Knesset’s Second Death Penalty Bill Debases Israel’s Lag Ba’Omer Revelry

The Knesset’s obsession with the death penalty in Israel once again collided with the Jewish liturgical calendar in yet another telling synchronicity, highlighting how that legislative body has upended the Jewish value of life. Many in Israel and across...

Feb 25, 2026, 12:33 AM

Using AI to Analyze the Board of Peace: The Puzzle and the Players

By Joe Nalven + Gemini I would like to write a happy article even though the world is not a happy place. But there are bright spots that can dazzle us into thinking the world is other than it is....

Menachem Bombach

Apr 28, 2024, 2:07 PM

The Haredi world must take civic responsibility

Student Success in the National Citizenship Test

Unless we can shift the ultra-Orthodox priority of segregating from Israeli society, the community is at great risk of more disasters

Moshe-Mordechai van Zuiden

Mar 9, 2024, 9:51 PM

Why is everything such a mess in Israel?

Reframing the balagan Not really everything here is a mess. But much of life is. And the mess is ongoing anyway. Everything in Israel is by approximation, except for credit card numbers. Part of it is also that logic plays no role. "It...

Miriam Simmonds

May 10, 2023, 7:18 AM

The Meron Tragedy: Sparks from the Dark

Lag BaOmer 2021. A tragic night that sparked immense debate on politics, religion, ideological divide. A night that sparked hugely emotive responses from across the country, in the form of anger, blame, hatred, pain undisguised or otherwise. Grief, undisguised...

Sam Lehman-Wilzig

Sep 17, 2021, 11:25 AM

A Classic Sukkah Joke That’s Deadly Serious

I was recently discussing with a friend what goes into building a sukkah, and promptly remembered one of my favorite Jewish jokes. After he stopped laughing, it hit me: this actually has a serious message, highly relevant to our...

Michael Laitman

Jun 29, 2021, 5:21 PM

Disasters will hunt Jews until unity is achieved

In a race against time, emergency workers try to find survivors of a residential building that collapsed days ago in Surfside near Miami, Florida. More than 150 people are still unaccounted for and the death toll rises every day....

Yehoshua Zepeda

Jun 8, 2021, 11:53 PM

Korach’s Ghost at the Gates of Justice

Botticcelli, Sandro. The Punishment of Korah. 1481-82

Like Jacob Marley in Charles Dicken's evergreen classic about a certain miser who reforms his stingy ways, the Ghost of Korach seems to have returned to haunt Jerusalem in spectacular fashion this week. First, there was the curiously reminiscent activities...

Michael Feldstein

Jun 4, 2021, 12:31 AM

Meditations on Meron

The 45 bodies have been buried. Hundreds of family members have completed their shiva for the victims. And while the news in our community has recently focused on the thousands of rockets launched by Hamas that terrorized Israeli citizens,...

Jun 1, 2021, 3:09 PM

HaKol B’Seder

Why is allowing 100,000 people to go down a narrow staircase different from an 8-year-old fixing his kite with chewing gum? About thirty years ago, I heard a story about an expert Israeli tech team that was hired by the...

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