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“Together, Tribes of Israel?" Zionism and Jewish Peoplehood

A two-part essay for The Peoplehood Papers, volume 22 – “Israel@70: A Peoplehood Perspective” Part 1: How Zionism challenges the Jewish...

Rivers, Rain, and Morality (Sukkot 5779)

Is there a relationship between Israel’s dependence on rain and the traits and values we developed as a people? Golda Meir famously...

Apes and Angels (Rosh Hashanah 5779)

We’re still in the Stone Age. Or rather, our minds are. I’m not kidding. The human brain has evolved very little since we were...

Independent Funders and Federations: Bound Together and Bound to Change

[This essay is part of a series from leaders in the field of Jewish philanthropy, who will offer reactions and analyses to Jack...

Third Time’s a Charm? Tisha Be'Av 5778

Whenever the Jews have had sovereignty in their land, they have messed up and lost it. Traditional Judaism has an obsession with...

Stop Stopping

“Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even...

Law and Love (Shavuot 5778)

Have you ever heard the phrase “the God of the Old Testament”? It’s generally used to distinguish between the supposedly angry, vengeful,...

After the Siren: Yom Hazikaron and Gratitude

Israel has two major memorial days: Yom Hazikaron—the remembrance day for fallen soldiers of Israel and Israeli terror victims—and Yom...

Why is This Freedom Different from All Other Freedoms?

There few things more delightful that getting into an argument with your teenage child about the meaning of “freedom”. No, my dear son,...

Greece and Rome: Ideas, Technology, and the Problem with American Judaism

Much of our communal energy over the last three decades has been aimed at creating platforms, leaving the content pretty much up for...

Diaspora Philanthropy To Israel Is No Longer A One Way Street

I follow Anshel Pfeffer’s column in Haaretz with assiduity. I usually find his mordant analyses profound and insightful. But I can’t help...

Tu Bishvat: Rousseau’s Social Contract and the Carob Tree

Our obligations extend to both past and future. Almost all modern societies are based on variations of a single concept: the “Social...

The Kidnapped Goddess, The Hidden Light, and Hanukkah

Persephone was a unique goddess in Greek mythology. She lived an idyllic and lonely life in communion with Nature, far from the other...

Terror in New York: A Personal Reflection on Friendship

Intense, lifelong friendships that transcend social and cultural barriers are an Argentinian specialty, like tango, recurrent currency...

Sukkot: Don’t Read This—It’s Utterly Futile

The choice of Kohelet for Sukkot is a curious one. Sukkot is supposed to be the most joyous festival in our calendar, and yet, on it we...

Philanthropic Arrogance (and how to avoid it), Part II

In order to succeed as philanthropists, we need to better understand and accept the views of those who are in positions of less relative...

The New Year for Globalists & Nationalists

Georg Friedrich Hegel was to modern thought what Plato was to Greek philosophy. Most of the ideological movements of the 19th and 20th...

Arrogance of Philanthropists, Part I

Many people acquire power precisely by having a great capacity to be empathetic, or, at least, to be well-attuned to the emotional...

Tisha Be’Av: A Failed Holiday?

If the purpose of Tisha Be’Av is to warn us about the dangers of internecine hatred, it has failed miserably. The year 403 BCE was...

Do You Fund Like Chairman Mao?

All that death and destruction could have been avoided with honest and timely feedback. One of the greatest famines of all time took pace...

The Words We Say and the Words We Don’t: Shavuot 5777

Every time you scan your purchases at the grocery store self-checkout line, you’re learning Jewish mysticism. In 1948, the president of a...

How to Change the World: A Conversation with Charles Bronfman and Harold Grinspoon

At the recent Jewish Funders Network conference, I sat down with two living legends of philanthropy: Harold Grinspoon and Charles...

Letter to My Son Going to Israel

Friends, I generally use the Jewish holidays to share ideas and insights on Judaism and philanthropy. But this holiday of Yom Haatzmaut,...

Nietzsche and Pesach: How the Exodus Ruined Everything

Frederick Nietzsche believed that the Egyptians were blond. My apologies; I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the beginning:...