L’Shana Tova (Happy New Year!)
Tuesday, October 11, 2016 Yesterday and the day before were Rosh HaShanah — the Jewish New Year. It is both a joyous and a serious time of year. Beginning a full month before the holiday, we spend time reflecting on our actions and omissions of the past year and look forward to a new and
Shabbat — the most important symbol of Jewish identity?
Tuesday, September 6, 2016 September is here and with it comes so many new beginnings. School starts on the 1st of September and children begin pre-school or school on that day. Often Rosh HaShana, the Jewish New Year, also begins in September but this year Rosh HaShana is late and will only begin in early
I Will Give this Land to Your Children
Tuesday August 2, 2016 Summer is raging in Israel. And that is a good thing. I love the summer months. I love the heat, the sun, the warm air enveloping me and reminding me how beautiful this country is. I walk out of my house in the morning and see the sun shining and it
Changing Realities Create Unexpected Opportunities
Tuesday, July 5, 2016 I spent last week in the UK on a speaking tour. I met people and addressed audiences in England, Scotland and Wales and enjoyed every minute of it (except the cold rainy weather of course!) But arriving in Great Britain just 2 days after the dramatic results of the Brexit
The Politics of Israel – The What and The Who
Tuesday, June 7, 2016 This has been a very political few weeks in Israel and I know many of our friends outside of Israel find it difficult to keep it all straight. So I thought I would try and clarify things a bit. A year ago, there were national elections in Israel and the
The Lies That Surround Us
Tuesday, May 4 ,2016 A top news story today focused on recent statements by members of the British Labor Party against Israel. One after the other, these politicians said some of the most horrible and anti-Semitic things about Israel and the Jewish people. There was an accusation that Israel supports ISIS and was behind the
Can We No Longer Discuss the Morality of Incidents?
Tuesday, April 5, 2016 Yesterday a group of students from NYU, an American university in New York City, came to visit Karnei Shomron. They were on a semester in Israel program and as part of a course on religion and politics, they were interested in how religious beliefs affected the settlement movement. They also wanted
My Journey Down Under
Tuesday, March 1, 2016 As I write this newsletter, I am in New Zealand, towards the end of a more than 2-week speaking tour “down under.” I had a wonderful time in Australia, as meeting after meeting surpassed my expectations. The audiences were warm and supportive and the numbers at each meeting were more than either
The Hatred That Continues…
Tuesday, February 2, 2016 For months now, terrorism has been raging in Israel. Not the sort of terrorism we encountered 15 years ago when every other day there were massive attacks and scores of people were murdered each month. Then, you never knew where the bomb would explode — on the bus, in the coffee
We’re Having a Wedding!
Tuesday, January 5, 2016 I was chatting with Kim Troup yesterday by phone and she mentioned to me that the news coming out of Israel was just consistently bad — terrorist attack after terrorist attack, a massive manhunt to apprehend the terrorist who murdered two people in a Tel Aviv night club and a third
Uniting with Israel against Islamic Terrorism
Tuesday, December 1, 2015 Yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed an international conference in France and, after expressing his sympathy for the people of France following the recent terrorist attack, said the following: “Both our peoples have long and bitter experience confronting terrorism. This is not surprising, because Israel and France have in common precisely
Solidarity with Israel Today
November 3, 2015 As I was driving home from meeting a group in Har Bracha this evening, I heard an interesting news item on Israeli radio. Walmart, the giant American department store chain, was selling costumes for Halloween last week, including a costume of an Israeli paratrooper. When pro-Palestinian customers got wind of this, they
