Tehilla R. Goldberg

For me, the upcoming holiday of Shavuot has always arrived with a certain gentleness. Not only because there is the literal countdown to the holiday, and it brings with it a sense of accomplishment (that is, if you managed not to mess up the Omer count!) and a sense of special arrival.

I found myself bristling as I read some of the news coming out of Israel these past couple of days. Of course, the security situation and navigating it in all of its complexity is at the forefront. But a few news stories caught my eye that were truly so upsetting. Among them, a nun was knocked to the ground. As appalling and wrong as that is, I knew it was an outlier, an aberration.

In Mount Herzl, Israel’s national cemetery, located in Jerusalem, adjacent to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial, there is a dedicated plot where the prime ministers of modern day Israel are buried. All, but one. Menachem Begin. Here’s a little slice of history that sheds light on the reason.

This Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, I think of so many people dear to me, who survived. Who today are no longer with us. Yet their...

After two Passovers in a row, when we not only spoke of the bondage of our people in the past, but lived through two Passovers knowing that our brothers and sisters were bound to the ground, in Hamas tunnels, the celebration of freedom was incomplete — and also truly painful.