Hello, friends. I hope you are well. I am checking in on the eve of Yom Kippur with a heavy heart and an upset stomach. The ongoing, seemingly never-ending war in Gaza is making me want to throw up. Earlier in the war, I attended events at my synagogue to discuss it, but I have stopped. They held a discussion about Zohran Mamdani, and I didn’t attend that either because the major headline about Mamdani is where he stands on Israel. I wish we had more space to talk about other things. I had...

Bend the Arc is a US-based progressive Jewish organization with an interesting take on antisemitism. I would recommend their Dismantling Antisemitism Message Guide for its refreshing perspective that challenges popular notions of antisemitism, but I’m not going to make you open another window. I’ll just summarize. Basically, they teach that antisemitism is manmade and therefore can be man-destroyed. They teach that we can end antisemitism, and they criticize folks who talk about antisemitism...

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the devastating acts of violence against American Jews in Boulder and DC. I’m sure you have too. The Boulder attack was an act of cruelty in which the assailant set demonstrators, including the elderly, on fire. In DC it was an act of murder. These were targeted attacks against Jews. People are furious at Israel for its destruction in Gaza, and this is reasonable. I am too. But being furious at Israel doesn’t cause a reasonable person to wield a Molotov...