Kol hakavod, as they say in Hebrew for congratulations, to professor Jonathan Sarna for his piece on the steps the American Jewish community must take in an economic downturn. His is a respected voice that hopefully our communal leadership will listen to.
The anger in a significant portion of the Los Angeles Jewish community this week is not about the economy, Hamas or Bernie Madoff — it’s about Roger Cohen.
Jews can’t sit still, especially when we see a member of the tribe royally mess up. A kosher slaughterhouse accused of grossly violating labor laws?
It’s like Alice falling through the rabbit hole: step onto any university campus, and the world is bigger, more colorful, more full of chance and wonder than you thought possible. To be reminded of the beauty of youth, the innocence of the untested, the buoyancy and optimism of the untouched. It’s a transformative experience — humbling and hopeful, a reminder of life’s most sacred promise: that every mistake can be corrected, every disappointment can lead to joy, every generation’s failures can be mitigated by the triumphs of the next.
Purim used to be all about carnival: makeup, masquerade, cheering the heroes (with whom we identified ourselves), booing the villains (who were obligingly already dead) and overindulging (which we hardly ever permitted at any other time). It has in more recent years become more problematic.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.