In the early 1600s, Rabbi Samuel Palache, president of Neveh Shalom Synagogue in Amsterdam, was also a pirate. With authorization from Dutch and British authorities, he preyed on Spanish ships. A hundred years earlier Spain had cruelly expelled his family, along with all other Spanish Jews. I relate to the roving rabbi. For half the...
As the rabbi of a fledgling synagogue in Venice, CA, one of my first goals was to build a school. Recognizing that a stable community needs a place to celebrate and pass along its values, Susan and I spent the summer after our marriage recruiting students for an enterprise that, as of yet, had no...
When you were a child, the unwanted food on your plate probably didn’t become more appealing when your mother reminded you that children in Africa were starving. Similarly, knowing that the current downturn does not compare with The Depression doesn’t necessarily make our own lives less stressful. And when we live with constant tension we...
