Friends and family don’t need to agree. But, we should listen to one another.
Does Hamas have a problem with Jews or with Zionists?
Maybe Hamas doesn’t have a problem with Jews. It’s just Zionists. It must be true. After all, some of the protest encampments had a Passover seder. Some Jewish students and faculty joined the protests. Some were even organized by Jewish
Radical Listening
We’ve forgotten how to listen in a world where everyone screams to be heard. Enter radical listening—an approach that flips the script. This is raw, unfiltered, and, yes, radical. Radical listening is not… Radical listening isn’t about waiting for your
What about the genocide?
What about the genocide in Gaza? Great question. It seems pretty clear that one side in the Gaza war meets the criteria for genocide spelled out in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Are our kids ready for college?
What will Jewish kids and faculty encounter at college? Here is a sampling of what’s reported in the Purdue Exponent. Of course, Purdue University is not a campus known for radical politics. So, you or your kids should be safe
Israelis and American/Canadian/British Jews Live in Parallel Information Universes
Israelis are exposed to the complex layers of the Gaza war. In parallel, Jews in the West are being fed a constant diet of shallow information, partial information, and straight-out misinformation. Will this gap — let’s call it CNN disorientation
Changing the landscape of Jewish life in North America
Dear Friends, October 7th and its aftermath forces us, I hope, to ask questions. What is our relationship with each other? What is our connection to Jewish peoplehood? What does it mean to be Jewish in the 21st century? Hopefully,
How to talk to kids about Hamas (Dr. Sanjay Gupta gets it wrong)
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is great. I love listening to his podcast, Chasing Life. But, he misses the main point in the episode “Paging Dr. Gupta: How to Cope with The Current News Cycle.” How to talk to your kids about
Why are you asking for a ceasefire?
Intuitively, we ask our leaders to justify the use of military power. We should ask the same questions of those demanding an immediate ceasefire. A perspective from Minnesota. Ask what justifies war Since the end of the Second Gulf War,
Our Tremendum
This was no ee’roo’a. This is our tremendum. Israelis know how to deal with terrorist incidents. We mourn the victims, we comfort their families, we draw some conclusions concerning how to improve security, and life goes on. Indeed, with typical
What’s happening to Jewish students at elite universities?
At Cornell University (my alma mater), Henry Schechter, a Jewish student, writing in the Cornell Daily Sun, describes how “I couldn’t do anything but applaud” when the call to genocide, Gaza will be free from the river to the sea,
What about the kids in the USA?
Hi Guys,Thanks for supporting the Jewish right to life in Israel. We support yours, too 🙂 How are your teens and adult kids managing? How will their kids manage? Last week, a dear friend, an American Jew, told me that
How deep are our divisions? How strong is our bond?
Before October 7th, the people in Israel were in crisis. How deep are those divisions really? I drove down south on the first Sunday and Monday of the war, and to a nearby army staging area right after Shabbat on
Nuance
We Are Family
Respectful Dialog
Nuanced conversations are the kryptonite of black-and-white thinking. This site is about nuance. It’s where people with different perspectives come together to have respectful dialogue.
These conversations help us embrace our relationships with Israel and each other in all its messy, complex glory. They also help us build stronger relationships, especially when we don’t see eye to eye.
So next time you’re tempted to engage in binary thinking, take a deep breath and challenge yourself to have a nuanced conversation. Stop in for a read at Letters Between Friends.