Steve has a Masters Degree in Jewish Education from Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles and a BA from UCLA. For the last 20 years he has managed support and training teams across Silicon Valley. In October 2017, Steve accompanied a 200-year-old Torah Scroll back to its ancestral home in Olomouc in the Czech Republic for the first time in 78 years. It was an amazing, historic, one-of-a kind adventure. Steve has blogged widely about the experience and is a recognized expert in the stories of the Olomouc Scroll and its sister scroll from Cheske Budejovice.
I just found this charming for several reasons, not the least of which, because Mina is a friend of mine and her father is the iconic former LA city council member (and founding editor of “HaAm” the UCLA Jewish student newspaper) Zev Yaroslavsky. I also thought back to a couple of things. First of all … More Shiva and the Rose Parade
I can’t tell you how frustrating it was to have to deal with insurance companies to get approval for a medication that my doctor wanted to put me on. There’s a lot of nonsense that patients have to go through in our current health care system to get required medication approved by insurance companies, it’s … More My saga with Industrialized Health Care
Our society in the US is nothing if not divided. Everybody knows it. It’s no secret. And in particular, over the last year or so, we have had a startling amount of political violence directed on both the political left and the political right. I don’t need to bore you with a recitation of the … More “How much evil are we expected to swallow?” (כמה רוע אפשר לבלוע?)
Today, I read Torah for the Second Day of Rosh Hashanah, probably one of the most dramatic lines in all of Torah from the famous “Akedah,” or Abraham’s near sacrific of his son, Isaac on Mount Moriah. There’s some deliberate dramatic embellishment that use. (Genesis 22:11) וַיִּקְרָ֨א אֵלָ֜יו מַלְאַ֤ךְ יְהוָה֙ מִן־הַשָּׁמַ֔יִם וַיֹּ֖אמֶר אַבְרָהָ֣ם ׀ אַבְרָהָ֑ם … More Dramatic License: Chanting “Akeidat Yitzhak”
Not exactly the hit Netflix TV series… During the repetition of the Musaf Amidah on Rosh HaShanah, there are 3 themes: “Malchuyot” (Soverignty), “Zichronot” (Memories) and Shofarot (Blasts of the Shofar). In this year’s rendition, there were three big moments for me, today. The first came during the reading of the Haftarah for the First … More Keter Melucha (The “Crown”)
Charlie Kirk’s murder was a tragedy for our nation. Nearly every Democratic leader that I saw condemned political violence and stopped right there. And yet Trump showed his true stripes last night with that horrid speech that he made condemning political violence, yes, but then attempting to blame it on others, namely, his perception of … More Trump’s awful reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder
Honestly, before Sunday night, I’d never heard of Hannah Einbinder. Today i’m commenting about her and her ridiculous speech at the Emmys. “Separating Jews from Israel” can’t possibly be what you meant. It’s a nonsense statement. Israel and the Jewish people are inexorably intertwined. Maybe you misspoke and what you meant to say is that … More Who is Hannah Einbinder and why should I care?
I couldn’t help but think of the topic of boats sailing off the coast of Israel in times long ago, and also in recent weeks. In the last couple of weeks, we had the nefarious boat carrying Greta Thunberg and her “selfie flotilla” who certainly did not have Israel’s best interests at heart and thankfully … More Boats
“All of Israel is responsible one for the other” (Talmud Bavli, Shavuot 39a) As the horribly s***** news keeps flowing in over the last several hours about the murders of these 6 beautiful souls by Hamas terrorists, I’m struck by several things that I’m seeing. Everyone that I know seems to be concerned and are … More “Kol Yisrael Areivim Zeh Ba-Zeh”
Imagine being in the biggest crowd of Jews and other supporters of Israel that you have ever seen in your life. That was November 14, 2023 in Washington DC … More With 290,000 of my closest friends in Washington D.C.
The Tao of Steve 