When a Jew is Torn Between Freedom and Family

 
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called "When a Jew is Torn Between Freedom and Family."

Shulem Deen’s All Who Go Do Not Return is a powerful memoir chronicling his escape from the insular Skverer Hasidic community. Deen’s world was shaped by strict prohibition of secular influences, arranged marriage, and demand for total conformity, enforced by harsh punishments and social control. After being cast out for his growing doubts, Deen lost his family, faith, and community, and struggled through loneliness and depression. His story is both a lament for what was lost and a testament to the steep, lasting price of freedom, raising profound questions about the cost of authenticity and the challenge of losing everything. 

(AI generated image via Meta)

When a Jew is Torn Between Freedom and Family

How One “Peacenik” Became Practical

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called "How One 'Peacenik' Became Practical.'"

Simplistically, you can say that the Right is right! After almost 2,000 years of Jewish diaspora, pogroms, persecution, and the Holocaust, Jews can no longer, in good conscience, tolerate any existential threats. While Jews initially accepted the UN partition for a two-state solution, Arabs vehemently rejected it and went to war against the then-fledgling State of Israel. Moreover, despite the Arab loss, they continued to mount martial campaigns, intifadas, terrorism, and war against Israel, only to be repeatedly defeated. Each and every chance that Israel gave the Palestinians for mediation, negotiation, compromise, and peace was rejected and met with more cries of Jihad!

In short, the Left is right when it comes to caring about others and the ultimate goal that we all seek, which is genuine and lasting peace and the ability to live side by side as brothers and sisters in peace and prosperity. However, the Left got it all wrong when it comes to the reality on the ground in terms of the radical Islamic groups who want no peace, no negotiation, and no recognition of Israel, period. This is where the hope of the Left met the reality of the Right, and the Left lost all credibility, at least for the time being. Perhaps, just perhaps, reality will change and radical hearts will soften and give peace a fighting chance, allowing the Left to be right as well.

(Source Photo: IDF Editorial Team; https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/palestinian-terrorism/a-soldier-s-letter-to-the-mothers-of-the-kidnapped-teens/)

How One “Peacenik” Became Practical

From Creation to the End of Times

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, "From Creation to the End of Times."
 

As Jews, we travel through history to our destiny along an arc of birth, growth, decline and the learning from our mistakes, to ultimately the fulfillment of our divine mission for world enlightenment. Jewish history can be broken down in a couple of amazing ways: first by every two millennium from creation forward, and second, starting with Abraham, in 400-500 year increments.

We have an incredible history that takes us along a clear trajectory from our founding of monotheism and special relationship with G-d as His "chosen" in the receiving the Torah and its transmission, to our many weaknesses and failures in going astray from our mission, and ultimately to our redemption and achievement of G-d's purpose for us in bringing his teachings and glory to all the world.

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

From Creation to the End of Times

To Bear Eternal Witness

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, "To Bear Eternal Witness."

I just finished reading a most gut-wrenching book, Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli. I came across this book after learning that my wife’s grandmother had been selected by Dr. Josef Mengele (may his name be forever cursed) for torturous experiments at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust. This New York Times Bestseller is a vivid eyewitness account by a Jewish forensic pathologist, who worked directly for Dr. Mengele, and tells of the unspeakable cruelty and horrors at Auschwitz, the largest Nazi death camp vastly accounting toward the twelve million people exterminated by the Nazis, six million of them Jews.

From my experience, once you pick up this book, you cannot put it down until you finish it completely, and I urge everyone to make this a must-read, especially as there will soon be no more Holocaust survivors to tell us, in-person, the hell that they lived through.

(Free Photo of Kyklon B Poison Gas via Pixabay)

To Bear Eternal Witness