Wednesday, July 9, 2008
A Letter from Larry Rich of Emek Medical Center; Israel
Israel is not the easiest place to live and maintain one’s optimism. Fortunately, I represent an institution that re-energizes me everyday and allows me the privilege to observe, at eye-level, people making an effort to get along with one another - despite the maelstrom of hate swirling around us. Political hatred between Jews and Arabs runs very deep and ultimate reconciliation will need to come from an equally deep place from within us all. To reach that place is a painstakingly slow process...
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Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Hate Kills
Every so often, while on assignment for a magazine article, I come across a story that sticks in my craw – a story that insinuates itself into my life to the point where I can’t ignore it. This was the case when, while researching a rather benign fluff piece for a lifestyle magazine, I came across a hornet’s nest of hate. The topic was pleasant enough – Public Gardens of Westchester. I chose one in Yonkers, NY that is hardly ever referenced anywhere; Untermeyer Park. It turned out to be an...
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Friday, July 4, 2008
The Summer Off
With no major holidays during the summer (Passover and Shavuoth behind us, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur far ahead), it feels as if most people take "off" being Jewish at this time of year. I, personally, don't go to synagogue. I don't take religious class. And yet, of course I can't escape being Jewish just as surely as one cannot shuck off his or her Christian or Muslim identity. My Temple holds many services outside - the better to thank G-d for all that surrounds us. I just try to be more...
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Friday, June 27, 2008
Israel, Then and Now
I wrote this for my newspaper column two years ago. It still applies now - and then some.... Hamas was a major topic of discussion as we toured through Israel last week. Two years ago we took the same trip, though the situation was vastly different. Two years ago, Hamas was in the news not for its political success, but for the brutality and frequency of its acts of terror. Israeli buses, hotels, University cafeterias, ice-cream shops, pizzerias and nightclubs were being blown up at an alarming...
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Monday, June 16, 2008
Innovations out of Israel
Scientists in Israel are adept at making the dessert bloom. Most of the State of Israel was once the hostile scrub-brush environment described by Mark Twain in his travelogue, "Innocents Abroad" until the Jewish pioneers of the early 1900's got a hold of it. Now, that tiny country exports more flowers - grown in hydroponic greenhouses that dot the Negev - the barren South - than almost every other country in the world. So, it's no surprise that two Israeli architects designed an energy efficient...
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