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Sharona Margolin Halickman

Jun 23, 2026, 10:05 AM

The Origins of Rosh Tzurim and Gvaot

Bilam’s first bracha (Bamidbar 23:7-10) declares: “From Aram, Balak, King of Moav brought me, out of the mountains of the east saying, ‘Come curse Yaakov for me. Go denounce Yisrael.’ How can I curse whom God has not cursed? How...

Sharona Margolin Halickman

Jun 18, 2026, 10:18 PM

The Kings Highway

In the United States, when one hears the words “Kings Highway,” they think of Brooklyn, NY or the Colonial American Road built by King Charles II between Charleston and Boston. But the original Kings Highway goes back to Biblical...

Jun 13, 2026, 5:23 PM

Returning to Israel With My Brother — This Time, to Serve

Illustrative. The author, left, and his brother. AI image created by the author.

The first time I went to Israel, I was 20 years old. My older brother David was 27. We visited Sharm el Sheikh. We trekked through Sinai, which today is part of Egypt. I remember the desert — not perfectly,...

Jun 4, 2026, 11:27 PM

For Father’s Day: My Dad’s Life of Curiosity and Hospitality

The author's family photographed in 1968: Steven, Michele, Dorothy, Janet, Howard Braun. Photo courtesy of the author.

My father really enjoyed Hadassah Magazine. As a dyslexic, he read slowly and also very carefully. As an intelligent individual, he had a significant vocabulary and particularly appreciated well-written and well-thought-out articles. I suspect he read each issue more...

Sharona Margolin Halickman

Jun 3, 2026, 9:07 PM

Why were the scouts permitted to take the grapes?

In Parshat Shlach, we read about the 40 days that the scouts checked out the Land of Israel. We don’t know about all of the places that they went to but we do know the following (Bamidbar 13:21-24): They went...

Gabriella Jacobs

May 31, 2026, 9:07 AM

Confessions of Israel’s Least Enthusiastic Domestic Tourist

Camel lookout in Mitzpe Ramon (Wikimedia Commons)

There is a certain type of person who, upon moving to a new country, throws herself into learning its geography, its neighborhoods, its hidden corners. She buses somewhere new every weekend. She has a favorite hummus place in four...

Sharona Margolin Halickman

May 25, 2026, 7:40 PM

What is considered to be far from Jerusalem?

In Parshat Behaalotcha (Bamidbar 9:9-13), we read about those who are granted the opportunity to observe Pesach Sheni: God spoke to Moshe saying: “Speak to B’nai Yisrael, saying: Any person, if he will be impure from a human corpse or...

Michael J. Lewis

May 25, 2026, 7:14 PM

Flashback Half-a-Century: Saying Goodbye to ‘My’ Kibbutz (Kfar Blum) – A Homage!

Personal photos of Kibbutz Kfar Blum taken by the author

50 years ago to-the-day - ”On This Day” in May 1976 - I left the Kibbutz where I had spent almost two, personally-transformative, years as a volunteer: Kibbutz Kfar Blum in the Upper Galilee alongside the Jordan River with...

Mihaela Toma Makenbach

May 13, 2026, 4:40 PM

How US Patient Financing Is Quietly Reshaping Israel’s Medical Tourism

A 38-year-old woman in Brooklyn opens her insurance statement and finds that her health plan covers two diagnostic cycles, not the in vitro fertilization that follows. She prices the IVF program at a Manhattan clinic at roughly $25,000. The...

May 10, 2026, 11:38 PM

Feeling like Freud at the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Were the mental health crises I witnessed in American Jewish teenagers a symptom of a political destabilization already on its way?

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