There is a windmill near our hotel here in Jerusalem. Sometime in the last 4,000 years — probably in the last century (I am making no claims of accuracy in this reportage; please offer corrections in “Comments”) — a rich Jewish guy paid for a bunch of idealistic but relatively helpless urban Jews (like me, … Read more
A dog doesn’t want me to be typing right now. We’re at the Vermont home of my wife’s oldest brother, Denry, and his wife, Chris, and their daughter, Nadya. They have two goats, one of whom has miraculously recovered from a complete de-horning, and two very friendly dogs (and, I think, two cats — they’re … Read more
In Modern Hebrew for Beginners, a book I just bought at Afikomen Judaica in Berkeley, a footnote says: aleph and ayin are pronounced with a stoppage of the air flow, much like the initial sound in “oh oh.” I once interviewed Michael Tilson Thomas, and asked him what he does in the moments before he … Read more
Next month I become a man, at least symbolically, when I will have my bar mitzvah in Israel, with my wife and son and a lovely group of fellow travelers. My dear friend the Rabbi Menachem Creditor of Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, who is leading the trip (and bringing his own beautiful family) has … Read more