The Truth about Gaza: One Rabbi’s Reflections Theories about the timing of recent rocket attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad into Israel are numerous. Whatever…
The Worldwide Chavurah
4 Ways a Semester in Israel Prepared My Daughter for Life URJ Heller High integrates academic, social, and emotional learning, powerfully transforming teens’ Jewish identities.…
An Open Letter to My Younger Self about My Judaism and More “Your formula is made up of three things society doesn’t view positively –…
How Does Your Judaism Spark Joy? If I ask myself, “Do these things spark joy?” that’s different than asking if I need or even if I want them, isn’t…
What I Learned in Cuba: #It’sComplicated On a recent trip to Cuba, we engaged in tikkun olam, helping the Cuban people, who are in dire…
Remembering My Mom and Making Her Legacy a Blessing Planning to offer brief remarks before Kaddish for my mother, I found it much harder to…
6 More Ways “Game of Thrones” is Like (and Unlike) the Torah I wrote about some of their similarities when season seven of Game of Thrones…
On Mother’s Day, Honoring My Mom, Our Judaism, and the Next Phase of Life As my mother relocates to an assisted living faility, I have…
A Mother’s Day Wish: An Interview with My 97-Year-Old Mother Having gained valuable insights from his 2018 interview of his mother, Adela, Aron Hirt-Manheimer decided…
Award-Winning Chef Michael Solomonov Shares the Love – and the Recipes Israeli Chef Michael Solomonov’s restaurant, Zahav, took home the 2019 James Beard Award for…
3 Questions to Ask on Israel Independence Day All discourse around Israel can be boiled down to three questions that can help us frame our…
Bearing Witness Today: Delayed Grief and Yom HaZikaron On Yom HaZikaron, the umbrella of grief – recent and delayed – spreads over every Israeli citizen…
A Letter to My Daughter on Her Many Names In Jewish tradition we say that “a good name is better than riches.” We hope we…
My Big, Fat, Multi-Ethnic Jewish Wedding We knew we wanted our wedding to be a reflection of us and for our families to be woven…
How Do We Elevate Ourselves? Re-Examining the Imperative to “Please Rise” Those of us who use wheelchairs have accepted the idea that we need to…
A Blanket, a Letter, a Shoe: Searching for Meaning in Traces of the Holocaust The artifacts displayed in a major new exhibit, “Auschwitz. Not long…
What God Is and What God Is Not People often ask me: How could a good God allow the Holocaust to happen? The best answer…
Riding Out of Missoula, MT, with Torah on My Mind I cannot possibly imagine that I will think often and fondly of this day in…
A New Jewish Initiative Will Stand Up for Immigrant and Refugee Justice On the eve of Yom HaShoah, the Kraus Family Foundation and the Union for Reform…
Yom HaShoah: When Will Senseless Hatred Be a Thing of the Past? On Yom HaShoah, I will attend a ceremony at Yad Vashem. While it…