Many Jewish people have a hard time figuring out what Christmas is about. When I was a young Jewish kid growing up in Catholic-Protestant Quebec, I loved the winking tree lights, the holly and the ivy wreaths, the fact that many people were getting tipsy and acting especially friendly to each other. As a musician, […]
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 […]
Nineteen years ago jihadi terrorists attacked America. Four jet-liners rammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field murdering 2,996 civilians. Fifteen of the nineteen Islamist hijackers were Saudis. At that time Saudi official sources denied any Saudi involvement. Instead they blamed Israel and the Zionists for the 9/11 attacks: On June […]
August 30 2020 Shalom dear friend, This is a letter I didn’t want to write. Composing this letter over the last few weeks has been difficult. Yet I am compelled to tell you what I sense, writing as carefully as I can. For many years of our marriage and ministry Avner has been the […]