It seems like we\’ve been on the verge of 2004 for ages —
presidential election years always seem to distort the space-time continuum —
but now it\’s really upon us, and a lively year it is certain to be.
For those who look up to the American Jewish clergy, it has not been a good year. Last week, one of the Reform movement\’s most prominent rabbis was suspended from the movement\’s rabbinical association for past sexual misconduct.
Bennett Zimmerman, a buttoned-down investment fund manager by day, stood up at the end of an evening\’s conversation and removed his shirt to reveal a T-shirt with bold Hebrew letters spelling out Ha\’am im HaGolan — The People are with the Golan.
My daughter flew home for Thanksgiving with two college friends in tow. At the dinner table, the conversation revolved around computers and the antics of the Stanford Band. At some point in the course of that whirlwind four-day visit, Hilary informed me that, though she\’s been diligently studying Hebrew since she started college, a Junior Year Abroad at Hebrew University is no longer part of her plans. It\’s not that she\’s changed her mind about someday returning to Israel, where she spent an amazing summer two years ago. But she\’s convinced that, given the stringent requirements of the high-tech major she seems to have settled on, even a semester in Jerusalem would derail her progress toward her degree.
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