During the eight-day autumn Jewish festival of Sukkot, those who observe it eat their meals in a temporary shelter called a Sukkah, partly as a reminder of the hasty flight from our lives of slavery in Egypt. At the start of the meal, we are invited to mention the names of individuals, living or dead, real or fictional, whom we would like to join us at the table, people whose lives and work we...
It’s good to be back after a rare respite from my five and a half year blogging adventure. I was intending to take two weeks off, but this brief report on part of my time away would have gone stale in another week. We drove the last of our family members who were here for the Passover holiday to the airport yesterday. We love having them and we love to see them go, and I think they would admit to...
It wasn’t until I typed that title into my computer that I realized how the two things I wanted to write about are connected in a very deep way. During the run-up to Passover which begins on Saturday evening, April 12th, it’s hard for me to focus on anything beyond the list that is constantly scrolling in my head of the tasks that remain to prepare for the dramatic transformation that our...
Looking Back I’ve mentioned before that I usually start my day by reading Diane Ravitch’s blog, one of the few that...
This is going to sound like a kvetch, but it’s not intended that way. Please believe me. Last week I posted a piece about the list of words and phrases that are now taboo in all government documents and publications. I said that I found this one of the more distressing atrocities among the many that the administration has perpetrated in a few short weeks. Controlling language is a shortcut to...