I hate Zoom services. It is very difficult for me to join them. Only part of it is the halachic implications. A year of social distancing and self-imposed lockdown has rendered me somewhat more lax than I have been in the past, particularly about electronics use. For me, COVID really hasn’t really touched my life
After an October windstorm a few years ago knocked out our power for over a week, Leah and I bought a generator. In the three years since we made that purchase, we’ve put over 100 hours on that generator. I’ve never lost power quite as much in my life as we have since moving to
My mom grew up on a farm, but I can’t even successfully grow tomatoes. More on this in a second. A friend I think very highly of posted something on her Facebook account, and I generally agreed with the gist, get on up and do something to repair the world. Wholly agree! Where I stopped
Many of us watched a video in which a police officer knelt on a man’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. We watched a man cry out for his dead mother. He was murdered. Say his name. George Floyd. Before I left the Guard, I had the opportunity to mentor a delightful young soldier
I never really had an opportunity to contribute to some of the other open source projects of a Jewish nature. I maintain a very full programming and project schedule already, between paid work and non-profit work. I’ve developed Android and iOS versions of my app, “The Kosher Backpacker Appalachian Trail Guide,” which is not open
I heard all the jokes after receiving our congregation’s nomination for the Presidency. Sufficiency of marbles, who hates you, etcetera etcetera. It’s such an honor, and every now and then, I feel like I was the right person at the right time. That is, on the days where I’m not questioning why the heck I
I have a large number of conservative, evangelical friends. more so than the average Jew. Most of this has to do with living outside of the Five Boroughs, in smaller Jewish communities with a greater presence of religious Christians, and some of it has to do with my lengthy military service. Watching the disagreement over
In Tablet recently, Liel Leibovitz scribed what is sure to be a controversial article blaming Boomers for ruining American Judaism. It raised some good points: For the most part, these people joined shuls, attended infrequently, and dispatched their young ones to Hebrew schools run by well-meaning but not particularly competent educators. I know more than
In one of my last acts as a non-commissioned officer before I hang up the uniform for good, I wanted to shed some light on the absolutely horrible landscape for survivors of military sexual assault or military sexual trauma that exists in the National Guard. This is in part prompted by a soldier of similar
July marked exactly 25 years from when I shipped to Fort Benning, Georgia, for One Station Unit Training and Airborne School. Around this time 25 years ago, I was wrapping up the first 8 weeks, getting ready for the next 5 or 6 weeks. If I’m going to have a past, I prefer it to
Writer, President of Bangor's Congregation Beth Israel, soldier, programmer, father, musician, Heeb, living in the woods of Maine with three ladies and a dog.
Director of Education for Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor, Maine, special educator and former school board member, mother to Amelia and Nezzie.
