Rabbi's Week in Review - 7/23/2024
07/23/2024 10:36:19 AM
I had a great blog just about to go in the hopper this week. But in our present environment, decades of history seem to be compacted into weekly occurrences that change the calculus and, at the very least, make previous intended missives if not irrelevant, at least beside the point.
With that in mind, I will simply say this: Depending on where you sit within the political spectrum, the range of emotions seems to lean negative —...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 7/15/2024
07/15/2024 12:53:27 PM
In a series of events, from a spate of troubling rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court to the debate to this past weekend’s horrific shooting (the political violence at the Trump rally — one person dead, two others in critical condition as I write this), against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Israel and Gaza with 116 hostages still not home, I have to admit that I am overwhelmed, as I feel many in our community and our country are...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 7/8/2024
07/08/2024 03:45:52 PM
A quick shout-out to last week’s Fourth of July observance. It was good to spend some time with family and friends, yet it seemed particularly lackluster this year. A guess that the issue is something to the effect of, what are we celebrating? Notwithstanding that we seem to have lost the meaning of the day for many years now, this July Fourth seemed different — a malaise of sorts, a certain hopelessness about the state of our...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 7/1/2024
07/01/2024 04:59:59 PM
As I write this, I’m hearing the announcement from the U.S. Supreme Court that, unlike everyone else in our country, the president of the United States is above the law. This ends a term of the court in which they have abrogated the long-held Chevron Doctrine — finding that federal judges, rather than administrators who are the top experts in their fields, are better positioned to make decisions about our dangerously climate-challenged...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 6/24/2024
06/24/2024 03:45:41 PM
Fay and I attended the concert of our Kansas City Symphony this past weekend. It not only was the last concert of the season but it also was the final concert of artistic director/conductor Michael Stern. He leaves the symphony after a 19-year tenure.
I, as I am sure many, have reflected on the changes and growth of our symphony over that period of time, beginning when the symphony was still playing in the old Lyric Opera...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 6/17/2024
06/17/2024 02:21:24 PM
Fay and I finished the most recent season of “Bridgerton,” one of Shonda Rhimes’ many acclaimed television creations. The setting for the series is early 19th-century London, a time and place of greater racial equality, due at least in part to the marriage of then King George II to Queen Charlotte, of Black Portuguese descent. That it facilitates many of the characters being both Black and of nobility is a welcome piece of the...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 6/10/2024
06/10/2024 12:59:44 PM
We were filled with gratitude this past week at the news that four of the hostages taken on October 7 by Hamas were rescued. We continue to pray for the release of the remaining hostages still held captive by Hamas.
Yet we cannot rejoice, as the rescue came at the expense of (at the time of this writing) 274 Palestinian lives and many more injured. After being at war for so many months, it seems that the terrible status quo...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 6/3/2024
06/03/2024 02:40:47 PM
The news of Donald Trump’s conviction on all 34 felony counts brought against him is too big to ignore, and I couldn’t if I wanted to. Following are some observations, particularly in response to the subsequent numerous attacks by Trump sycophants on our judicial system and our democracy.
Trump was not indicted by President Joe Biden, the Biden administration or the DOJ. He was indicted by New York citizens serving on a grand jury...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 5/27/2024
05/27/2024 04:16:46 PM
A couple of snippets for this week’s blog. Last week, KCMO City Councilman Nathan Willett put forth a resolution ostensibly to fight antisemitism. Thankfully, it was defeated by the City Council.
Recently, there has been a spate of politicians doing performative politics in their disingenuous concern about antisemitism. Willett, like Elise Stefanik and Michael Johnson et al., are now all about antisemitism. Yet their silence...Read more...
Rabbi's Week in Review - 5/20/2024
05/20/2024 05:20:27 PM
Over the past weekend, I attended a rally in support of a cease-fire in Gaza, uplifting the rights of Palestinians, seeking full humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza, and uplifting the work of the Palestinian American Medical Association, which has been working in Gaza to save Palestinian lives under the most challenging and dangerous circumstances. I did not agree with every viewpoint expressed at the rally, but I do believe in the...Read more...
Sat, July 27 2024
21 Tammuz 5784
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