As we are all aware, the good processes of innovation – which changed communal priorities, shone light on the marketplace that Jewish organizations are meant to serve, and promoted a wide array of new voices[…]
Month: August 2017
“Part of what makes the modern use of ‘winning’ so strange is that it’s often used in contexts that are not competitions”
Part of what makes the modern use of “winning” so strange is that it’s often used in contexts that are not competitions. The Trump campaign, for instance, only occasionally applied it to winnable things, like[…]
“The gap is real between American and Israeli Jews, with the exception of small pockets of like-minded communities…”
The gap is real between American and Israeli Jews, with the exception of small pockets of like-minded communities, and it has been expanding even after decades of bar mitzvah tours, Birthright trips, intense investment in[…]
“We entered the war against Germany in 1941, but not because they were Nazis…”
We entered the war against Germany in 1941, but not because they were Nazis. We did so because the Japanese had attacked us at Pearl Harbor, and in response, Congress declared war on the Empire.[…]
“The central challenge facing the process towards M&A in the Jewish ecosystem is money…”
The central challenge facing the process towards M&A in the Jewish ecosystem is money, in two ways: 1) there is no payout to investors, which is what incentivizes the culture in the tech and corporate[…]
“In our time, the Jewish community’s “functional consensus”, forged in the mid-twentieth century, has nearly unraveled…”
Historians of American Jews are accustomed to a different conceptualization of the past, one that depicts the broad sweep of American Jewish experience as a steady process of voluntary adaptation to a free, democratic, and[…]
“The pull-up is the apotheosis of beauty-strength, a motion that unites virtually every muscle group — and one that is surprisingly hard to perfect”
A proper pull-up is a yogic feat of concentration and grace. It is possible only when multiple muscle groups are working in tandem: the biceps, the latissimus dorsi, legs, abs and lower back to keep[…]
“Parenting is a universal phenomenon, so it is hard to say that there is a Jewish way to parent”
Parenting is a universal phenomenon, so it is hard to say that there is a Jewish way to parent. There is no uniquely Jewish way to conceive or to breast-feed or to discipline a child.[…]
“Fighting for the holy, big, silent majority, mainstream middle I think is going to be one of the major moral battles of our time”
They are playing in a social climate that is increasingly characteristic both here and in America where loud, destabilizing voices – voices do NOT represent the societal mainstream – are simply privileged by cultures of[…]
“It is time to start treating the gap between Israeli and American Jews as spectral in color rather than monochromatic
It is time to start treating the gap between Israeli and American Jews as spectral in color rather than monochromatic. Activists who try to name the root causes of this problem often point to single-causes:[…]