This is the season to ... determine our country’s future

For over 1,700 years of Jewish history, there were two things the Jewish people lacked. ...

For over 1,700 years of Jewish history, there were two things the Jewish people lacked. ...

(Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the August edition of Temple Beth Sholom’s Bulletin.)
Last year my August bulletin was titled “Living in a Worrisome World.”

Over 10 major Jewish organizations are lobbying for the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States. HIAS, known in the past as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society whose heroic work helped Jews fleeing from pogroms, is in the forefront of this effort.

On behalf of SAFEHOME I want to thank the Flo Harris Foundation for giving SAFEHOME a grant for the sixth consecutive year to provide outreach on domestic abuse in our Jewish Community. Healthy relationships equate to shalom bayit (peace in the home); and believe it or not, people benefit from learning what constitutes a healthy relationship.

Our campus community is undergoing a much-needed period of healing. Racial protests, discriminatory bias and a toxic atmosphere of disunity have torn apart the fraternity of our school, threatening the core values upon which the University of Missouri were founded.

(Editor’s note: This was written July 3 and posted on Facebook, the day following Elie Wiesel’s death on July 2.)
A response to T’ruah director
Jill Jacobs (no relation), executive director of T’ruah, recently wrote an op-ed in The Chronicle entitled “Anti BDS law can’t be pro-Israel if it tramples on free speech” (June 30).

"Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel,”
by Dov Waxman, Princeton University Press (April 12, 2016)
The period from the 1967 war to the first Lebanon War in the early 1980s can fairly be said to have been a halcyon era in the American Jewish community’s relationship with Israel.
Appalling letter
Having studied with Rabbi Mark Levin for several years I am appalled that The Chronicle would publish such an ignorant, juvenile, mean-spirited attack on his integrity such as the one by John Weed in your June 30 letters column.

Thrown together by the circumstances of place and time, both Jewish and non-Jewish colonists showed solidarity in breaking with the British. Their impassioned goal for a free nation was advanced by unmitigated commitment and bold actions.