Essays

Senior Column: One Thread Throughout the Before and After Times

The Chicago Maroon, June 2, 2021

What ties together my time at the University of Chicago? I’ve been thinking over that question a lot as I crawl, in denial, towards the end of my undergraduate years here. But it’s tough to unify an experience that was shattered in two so dramatically for me and so many others.

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Renew Our Days

Included in When We Turned Within (Vol 2): Reflections on COVID-19 

A short meditation on a prayer during a devastating pandemic.

Proceeds from the anthology will support UJA-Federation of New York's COVID-19 relief efforts.

Buy the anthology (paperback or Kindle) here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08L9S68T4

A Warped Prayer at Midway Airport

Included in When We Turned Within (Vol 2): Reflections on COVID-19 

A strange trip through an airport in Chicago turned into a prayer and a challenge.

Proceeds from the anthology will support UJA-Federation of New York's COVID-19 relief efforts.

Buy the anthology (paperback or Kindle) here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08L9S68T4

Jewish life revolves around being ‘people of the people’'’

The Forward (Scribe Contributor Network), May 26, 2020

When my grandfather passed away from COVID-19 on April 24, I thought we might only have ten men, for an Orthodox Jewish prayer quorum, at his graveside funeral. I was wrong. Only his wife, his three sons and the synagogue’s rabbi could see him off.

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The Holy Land

Memoryhouse, Autumn 2019, pp. 36-37

As my travels continued, I would encounter devastation among the living. In the middle of my journeys, while en route to the kibbutz collective community of Maale Gilboa, eighty miles outside of Jerusalem, for a weekend getaway, I had an hour stopover in a northern town...

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"Like a Fleeting Dream": U-Netaneh Tokef, Dreams, and the Meaning of the High Holy Days

The Lehrhaus; September 20, 2017

U-netaneh Tokef is the centerpiece of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Mussaf services. It’s stirring and emotional (“And let us now relate [the holiness of this day]”). Tradition has it that this prayer was authored by the medieval sage Rabbi Amnon of Mainz. [...] Though scholars doubt the facts of Rabbi Amnon—even his existence—its reception in traditional lore makes its theme worthy of consideration.

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A Prayer in the Forest

Tablet Magazine; June 7, 2017

Our sleepover in the woods was a success so far, but someone had to throw out the garbage before we went to sleep. Taking the box, my counselor’s bag, and a weak flashlight with me, I set out into the forest in the dark. (Following camp rules, I had left my cellphone at home.) It wouldn’t take me long to discard the trash in the main camp two minutes away; then I’d return and fall asleep beneath the stars. But I made a wrong turn along the way. I had no idea where I was... 

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The Caretaker at Har HaMenuchot

The Jewish Link of New Jersey; July 27, 2017 

Before visiting Har HaMenuchot, I had never been to a cemetery that I would describe as beautiful. But there was a certain beauty to Har HaMenuchot. Instead of being marked with foreboding gray tombstones, the graves were marked with rectangular, low headstones made of tan Jerusalem stone. 

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"Bright" Falters, But Netflix Still Shines

The Chicago Maroon; January 8, 2018

The significance of Bright, now streaming on Netflix, has nothing to do with its mashup of genres or star power. The fantasy/buddy-cop hybrid featuring Will Smith is the streaming service’s next and largest (to the tune of $90 million) attempt at disrupting the film industry. 

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