Baruch Dayan HaEmet: RivkA

As many who follow the Jewish blogosphere are aware, RivkA, authoress of the blog Coffee and Chemo, passed away.  Her funeral is underway in Jerusalem as I write this. I first became aware of RivkA at the first Jewish bloggers’ conference two years ago.  While most of the bloggers present had Israel advocacy as one [...]

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Baruch Dayan HaEmet: Professor Ehud Netzer

I received the following by email.  For those unfamiliar with the Herodion, it is the site of a pleasure palace/spa built by King Herod circa 40 BCE atop a man-made mountain in eastern Gush Etzion.  The mountain underneath the palace is a veritable rabbit warren of tunnels, some used by Jews fighting the Romans until [...]

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My favorite foodies, part IV: Ilana-Davita

This is the fourth in a series of interviews with some of my favorite home cooks.  (Read my previous interviews with Mimi, Leora, and Batya.)  Ilana-Davita has been one of my favorite bloggers for some time.  She and I share a profession as well as a love of gardening (though her garden is far lovelier [...]

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Book Review: Alan Dershowitz’s “The Best Defense”

I’m not sure there’s a soul in the Jewish world who doesn’t know who Alan Dershowitz is.  Made a full professor at Harvard Law School at age 28, one of America’s premier defense attorneys, a stalwart defender of Israel (though not of the settlements), and prolific author of books about the American legal system, Judaism, [...]

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Life as vacation

I did a lot of traveling after college.  I spent six months traveling through Asia and Europe soon after graduation (and blogged about it 20 years later here), and another entire summer in southern Europe a few years later.  I knew exactly what I was doing at the time: taking advantage of my youth, my [...]

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City of David: An obstacle to peace?

“Sixty Minutes” recently did a spot on Ir David (“The City of David”), the archeological site located in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, home to a few hundred Jews and a majority Arab population.  Here’s the video of the segment, hosted by Lesley Stahl: I was eager to watch it, thinking it was going to [...]

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The independent Michael Totten

A couple of years ago, my friend Michael A. Burstein (a science fiction writer; here’s his website) steered me toward independent journalist Michael Totten’s blog.  I was pleased to find Totten’s reporting thorough, thoughtful, and unprejudiced.  He takes a keen interest in the Middle East, visiting Lebanon and Israel frequently.  With Israel in most journalists’ [...]

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My favorite foodies, part III: Batya

I hope she won’t be offended, but I consider Batya Medad the grande dame of Jewish food blogging.  As the founder of the Kosher Cooking Carnival and a longtime dedicated Israeli blogger (her blogs are called me-ander and Shiloh Musings), she enjoys a dedicated readership and combines her love of food, Judaism, and the Land [...]

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I love my children, BUT…

While the Cap’n put the girls to bed tonight, Bill subjected me to one of our countless games of parental Marco Polo. “Mama.” “Yes, B.” Pause. “Mama.” “Yes, B.” Pause. “Mama.” “Yes, B.” Pause. “Mama.” “Yes, B.” Pause. “Mama.” “Yes, B.” Pause. “Mama.” “What?” Pause. “Mama.” “Yes, B.” Pause. “Mama.” “WHAT?” “Knee,” pointing to own [...]

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Why Israelis demand recognition

I wrote my most recent post without having finished reading last Friday’s Jerusalem Post.  After reading Amotz Asa-El’s piece on why Israelis demand recognition, I had to add it to my blog as another important perspective.  He explains why not demanding recognition from the Egyptians was a mistake, and why recognition in today’s Israel-bashing world [...]

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Abbas and the Jewish state

With the building freeze over for several weeks, Israelis living in the West Bank have been watching PM Binyamin Netanyahu to see if he will buckle under US pressure and reinstate a building moratorium to try to keep Abbas in his seat at the peace negotiations. Yesterday I learned that Bibi had offered the Arabs [...]

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My favorite foodies, part II: Leora

Today’s post is the second is a series about my favorite home cooks.  (Click here to read the first.)  Today’s favorite foodie is Leora, whose beautiful photos and paintings inspire the mind, and whose healthful, family-friendly, palate-pleasing recipes inspire my own cooking. Please introduce yourself in a few sentences. Professionally, I build and maintain websites. [...]

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Kosher Cooking Carnival #59 is up…

at Batya’s blog.  Check it out.

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Billy Joel song as history quiz

I was never a huge fan of Billy Joel.  A few of his songs I like, but most I don’t care about one way or another. But then this thing turned up on my radar screen.  His song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire” is actually intriguing for its lyrics, which aren’t really lyrics at all, [...]

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Tagging bears

My father sends me lots of cool (and sometimes weird) stuff.  The video below shows a segment from the Canadian Broadcasting Company’s “Rick Mercer Report” where the host trudges out into the snows of Algonquin Park to tag newborn black bear cubs.  Between Mercer’s humor, nutty Canadian accent, and the magnificence of the Park in [...]

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My favorite foodies, part I: Mimi

Since it’s finally achrei hachagim, I am settling down to do a series on my favorite foodies.  Some are bloggers, some not.  Some I know personally, some not.  But all have something about their cooking that I admire and have learned from. Today’s featured foodie is Mimi of the Israeli Kitchen food blog.  I love [...]

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Book review: Haviva Ner-David’s Life On the Fringes

A few months ago, Rabbi Avi Weiss of Riverdale conferred rabbinical ordination on Sara Hurwitz.  It created something of a furor at the time, which has since seemed to die down (at least in the Orthodox circles I inhabit).  I gave the matter some thought at the time, and wrote a post about it. I [...]

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