Bringing the Joy of Hockey to the Developmentally Disabled
This piece is part of a series of perspectives from Diller Teen Tikkun Olam Award Recipients on their experiences in philanthropic work.
Fire, Fire! The Challenges of “Kid Brain vs. Adult Brain”
Last week, I was invited to read a Yiddish poem at the first of our library’s “Favorite Poem Community Readings.” The event, which happened last night, is part of a national, decades-long peace initiative called the Favorite Poem Project, in which Americans are asked to transcend divisive cultural boundaries by reading each other their favorite poems. The only hard-and-fast rules for our local event were that (1) you’re not allowed to read a poem that you, a friend, or a relative has written, and (2) you have to explain why you like the poem so much. Our local organizer wanted to have poems in multiple languages, in order to emphasize the international diversity of our community. I was excited that she asked me to read in Yiddish.
Walking Through Schindler’s List
Of course I have seen Schindler’s List, the 1993 Holocaust movie directed by Steven Spielberg. Who hasn’t? Well, my 18-year-old daughter, Esther. So, we huddled on the bed in our tiny hotel room in Amsterdam, next to one of the many canals, and watched it on our laptop computer. After being in Krakow, watching this movie was a whole different experience.
Channeling The Power of Faith to End Gun Violence
Mothers who lost children to gun violence hold pictures as they wait for the arrival of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at the Kids Off the Block memorial on March 14, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois.
Rabbis are part of a growing group of American Faith Leaders who have witnessed with anguish our communities being devastated by suicides, homicides, unintentional shootings, and mass shootings. We have consoled families and buried their loved ones. We have seen how the most vulnerable and marginalized members of our society are disproportionately affected by gun killings. And we have watched in disbelief as our elected officials callously and cravenly fail to enact even the most basic legislative reforms to curb the ongoing gun violence epidemic.
ZOA President: We Are Not Conservative, But We Are Usually Right
Daniella Greenbaum (“Why the AIPAC Haters Have it Wrong,” 07/12/16) makes several unsubstantiated, inaccurate allegations about ZOA. ZOA is a 120-year old rational-centrist pro-Israel group. Being the only major group to have accurately predicted that the Oslo Accords and the Gaza withdrawal — and that dealing with Arafat and Abbas would never lead to peace, but to disaster — was not a “conservative” position. It was simply the truth. Opposing a Palestinian State, which would likely become a Hamas/Iran Gaza-like terrorist state, is a reasonable position supported by 75% of Israelis. Predicting that bringing large numbers of unvettable Muslims to Europe and America would lead to increased terrorism was not a “conservative” position — it was accurate.
