Daniel Lubetzky

The Opposite of Faith is not Heresy. But Indifference. – Elie Wiesel, quoted at the end of Beyond the Gates

Like Hotel Rwanda, Beyond the Gates (aka Shooting Dogs) peers into the genocide in Rwanda, here from the eyes of an older priest and a young teacher who witness the slaughter by Hutu militia wielding machetes on Tutsi refugees as UN peace-monitors stand by.  Less than 15 years ago this true story took place.  After [...]

We have grown so distant from nature that we no longer know, or even care, about where things come from, or how they look in their original state. I was curious about these, so I finally looked it up.  Can you guess their origins and natural form? 1) Water Chestnuts 2) Sesame Seeds 3) Oats [...]

Charlotte Allen writes in the Wall Street Journal about the creation of ASMEA, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, as an counterweight alternative to the highly-politicized MESA, the Middle East Studies Association. Towering scholar Bernard Lewis, described by Allen as the "eminence grise" of Islamic studies, is oddly enough the [...]

This guy, Randy Pausch, is truly inspiring.  Make sure you tune in till the end of his presentation.

With growing human population and consumption, our planet is already strained with water scarcity, fossil fuel scarcity, food scarcity, mineral scarcity, and environmental degradation.  Is the big picture that humans will eventually kill each other to compete for scarce resources? Let’s see. We are now 6.7 billion people, and growing. Billions are rising out of [...]

My sister had a really interesting observation on the modern forms of bondage that we experience, relating to the spiritual aspects of Passover… I wanted to share with you a perspective that I have been pondering upon regarding passover, which has to do with Spiritual aspects of this celebration, and which go beyond traditional interpretations. [...]

OneVoice Israel just commenced an exhibit titled "Till White Smoke Emanates" urging the Israeli and Palestinian heads of state to continue negotiations non-stop till they strike an agreement (the only missing ingredient in the leaders’ commitment to "ongoing" but not "uninterrupted" negotiations, as the OneVoice Mandate urges).     The "white smoke" concept is borrowed from [...]

Perri Klass wrote a very interesting article on the interplay between modern medicine’s use of anesthesia and its interplay with the far less scientific and more mysterious concepts of consciousness and self.  Anesthesia, as he writes,  encompasses "the allure and the terror of leaving yourself behind."

British Ex-Jihadists are changing course and not only renouncing terrorism, but organizing themselves to counteract it. The apt term for people who wrap themselves under the the mantle of Islam to justify inhuman acts of terror that are inconsistent with the religion’s core tenets is as pseudo-Islamic terrorists.  Here is an example of people that [...]