Longform, Longform, News & Politics, This Week In Wisdom, Uncategorized, Wisdom Daily News / 12 May 2021

Pew’s Jews: Five First Takeaways

Who doesn’t love a good demographic study?

Spirituality & Faith / 10 May 2021

Was The Tragedy At Meron Preventable?

It is always easy to dismiss the warnings. 

Hold Dualities Together / 07 May 2021

Mother Really Does Know Best

When tragedy strikes, motherly advice unexpectedly becomes a lifesaver.

Daily Life / 04 May 2021

Six Major Benefits Of Apologizing To Our Kids

A sincere apology to our children has significant benefits to their development in both the short and long term.

Historic Profiles, Inspiring Story, Longform, Longform, Relationships & Family, Uncategorized / 04 May 2021

Looking Evil In the Face, Boldly and Beautifully

“If there is only one book you are going to read….” is not something I say often, and something I don’t think should ever be said about a topic as important and as complicated as the Holocaust. I will say though, that anyone who cares about the topic, or any questions of evil and how we respond to it, really must read Faris Cassell’s new, and already award-winning book, The Unanswered Letter. I recently had the opportunity to talk with Faris about her work, which had already been awarded first place in the Jewish Book Council’s 2020 category for Holocaust writing, when we sat down, and since that time, has also won first place in the American Society of Journalists and Authors 2020 biography category. In other words, many people are noticing this powerful, compelling, and perhaps even game-changing approach to the topic. You will begin to get a sense of what I mean, as you read the record of our brief exchange, and I hope it leads you to read this book about one unanswered letter, but also about the “unanswered letters” in all of our lives, and even how we might begin to answer them. Faris, you state at the very beginning of the foreword, that The Unanswered Letter is “the story of a journey, (yours) and others, into the world of a letter dated August 5, 1939.” What have you discovered in your own journey — what wisdom or insight feels especially applicable to the moment in which we find ourselves in May 2021? This may sound harsh, but it reflects accumulated insights of my decade-long journey researching, writing, and pondering this story: We all need to look evil in the face. I’d lived a life of privilege at the time I encountered Alfred Berger’s desperate letter….

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