There is a Yiddish story about a man who spent all his free time at the shtetl kretchmeh (in Yiddish, a tavern doubling as an inn; in Polish karczma or in Ukrainian корчма). His wife bitterly complained about his all too frequent absences, asking him what he does there anyway with all his spare time. […]
Category Archives: Heart attitude to Israel
My Yiddish-speaking parents were communists. They believed that socialist revolution held the key to a better world, and they poured their lives out in support of what they called ‘the progressive movement.’ They loved music. My dad used to be a cantor in the U.S. Army and as a youngster he sang in Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt’s […]
In the Marx Brothers’ 1935 smash hit “A Night at the Opera,” Fiorello (Chico) and Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho) are in the thick of a business transaction regarding an opera singer’s contract. Fiorello points to a line in the contract and asks “Hey, wait, wait! What does this say here, this thing here?” Driftwood answers, […]
On July 6, 1924 a non-descript Scotsman approached the pulpit on 17 rue Bayard in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. The building was L’église écossaise de Paris (The Scots Kirk, Paris), and the preacher was Eric Liddell, the ‘Flying Scot’ and great Olympic hope of the United Kingdom. He chose not to run that day […]
In 1966 Randy Wolfe, a fifteen year old Jewish kid and brilliant guitar player, stepped into Manny’s Music on West 48th in Midtown Manhattan. There he bumped into a guitarist by the name of Jimmy James (‘and his Blue Flames’). Jimmy (who soon changed his own name to Jimi Hendrix) invited Randy down to the […]
One of God’s most precious promises to the Jewish people is found in Isaiah 54. Israel will undergo a process of metamorphosis which will transform her from shame and humiliation, from barrenness and desolation, from being considered a rejected wife and a reproached widow. She will morph into a gloriously married woman, filled with joy […]