I’m usually a passionate defender of the media. I’ll be with friends or family or out in the world somewhere, or on the phone with a reader. I’ll be told the New York Times or some other media organization is anti-Israel. They say it to me in particular because I’ve worked in the media most […]
Life is like a game of pinball. The little silver ball bounces from one side of the machine to the other. It goes where it goes. You can try to control the ball with the flippers. Good luck with that. In my experience, the flippers are pretty awful for controlling anything. It wasn’t my idea […]
If you don’t like what you see, maybe it’s time to change the view. Specifically, we all see rising anti-Semitism and this has me wondering about our view of the rainbow. You know: the rainbow. It’s everywhere. It’s on college campuses, made into flags and posters and maps of the United States and just about […]
When I was editor for the daily newspaper in Racine, I noticed a bad habit among us journalists. I call it the we-got-it moment and it’s when, journalistically speaking, you fall off your game. It works like this. Big news breaks. Maybe it’s a terrible shooting or a political figure stepping down. You rush […]
In a 17-minute podcast, Sam Harris delivers one of my favorite defenses of Israel. He’s a surprise source of support for the Jewish state. Harris is one of America’s leading public atheists, an intellectual and a philosopher with a podcast that’s downloaded one million times per episode, according to reports. He’s written five New […]
My, how things have changed since 2014. In 2014, we saw riots in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, President Obama initiated relations with Cuba and a Malaysian Airlines flight mysteriously disappeared (wreckage was later found). It was a time of racial strife and political division, with Ferguson serving as no small example. Yet […]
When I read of the professor who refused to write a letter of recommendation for a student to attend a Tel Aviv study-abroad program, my thoughts turned to Flint, Michigan. Yes, Flint, Michigan. You may recall, Flint is the city that had too much lead in the drinking water. A government switch […]
If you’re whitewater rafting and notice some unexpectedly busy rapids up ahead, best to give it your full attention. Here at the Chronicle, we can see the white froth just around the bend. It has our attention. What shall we do? The tussle over international trade has come home to the Chronicle. As you […]
If you are not watching “Fauda” on Netflix, I must ask, are you seriously not watching “Fauda” on Netflix? “Fauda” is an Israeli-made TV show about the conflict. It’s a work of fiction, about the undercover efforts of an Israel Defense Forces unit, trying to outsmart elements of Hamas. The best parts of the […]
In my dreams, I can see a better way in Gaza. Palestinians spent weeks engaged in a “Great March of Return,” a series of protests at the Gaza-Israel border that have included gunfire at Israel Defense Forces soldiers, throwing rocks and rolling burning tires at the security fence. Palestinians have been wounded and killed […]