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190 results total, viewing 111 - 120

The perils of speaking from ‘The Place Where We Are Right’

Yehuda Amichai (1924-2000) is the third in a line of Hebrew poets who have earned a place in the Israeli consciousness as “national poets.” The first of such men, Chaim Nachman … more

Rabbi James Rosenberg | 10/5/23

The cost of denial

When my wife, Sandy, and I sat down this past fall to view the 2011 Israeli film “The Flat” (“Hadirah”) on Netflix, we had no idea that we were about to see a documentary … more

Rabbi James Rosenberg | 1/10/19

Remember we all were strangers

They came from Jamaica, Namibia, Brazil, England, Peru, Ecuador, Germany, Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, Thailand, India, The Philippines and Korea; and they are all proud and accomplished Rhode Islanders. Once they were struggling … more

Rabbi James Rosenberg | 12/18/14

‘Crossing the uncrossable barrier’

In his 1985 book , “Time and Again: Autobiographical Essays,” Dan Jacobson (1929-2014), a well-respected South African and British writer, tells of growing up white and Jewish in a South … more

Rabbi James Rosenberg | 4/5/20

Thoughts on mortality and immortality

It was as a high school sophomore, in 1960, that I first encountered “Ozymandias,” a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). In the first line of the 14-line poem, Shelley tells … more

Rabbi James Rosenberg | 10/7/22

How to be Jewish in the diaspora

I set foot in Israel for the first time in June 1965. Having just turned 21 and looking forward to my senior year at Columbia come September, I was to spend most of my summer volunteering at … more

Rabbi James Rosenberg | 3/1/24

‘The Girl with Four Last Names’

“The Girl with Four Last Names” is the title of an essay written last spring by Sophie Schaerf in fulfillment of an assignment in her seventh-grade class in American history at Barrington … more

Rabbi James Rosenberg | 11/9/17

Confessions of a liberal Zionist

I confess that I am a liberal Zionist. I am proudly pro-Israel. Like almost all Israeli and American Jews, I am also pro-peace. Though I know that many of my fellow Jews disagree with me, I believe that a two-state solution to the … more

Rabbi James Rosenberg | 8/28/14

Stephen Greenblatt “The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve.

Where do we come from?

“The image of the man and the woman in the perfect garden suggests a tension between things as they are and things as they might have been. It conveys a longing to be other than what we have … more

Rabbi James Rosenberg | 3/6/19

How to talk about the Iran deal

On June 9, the Israel Task Force of the Community Relations Council of the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island sponsored an interactive program titled “Can We Talk About Israel.” According to promotional material, the purpose of … more

Rabbi James Rosenberg | 8/21/15