Leonard Fein
By Leonard Fein
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Opinion Endow This Column Today, for Only a Pittance
At Brandeis University, the standard advice given to visitors is that they must not stop as they walk about the campus — for in less than a minute, a plaque is attached to any immobile object. Nor is Brandeis unique in its offer of “naming opportunities.” Atop one synagogue in Newton, Mass., there is an…
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Opinion A Drum Major for Righteous Indignation
The occasion: The Senate vote on a bill to bar a 10.6% cut in payments to physicians who treat Medicare patients. Just before the July recess, the bill drew 59 “yea” votes — one shy of what was needed to cut off debate, eight shy of what would be needed to override the president’s promised…
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Opinion And So We Sing Our Longings
It’s become my custom, these last four or five years, to spend the final days of my visits to Israel at Kvutzat Geva. Geva is a kibbutz in the Emek. (Emek means “valley,” and there are many named valleys in Israel — Emek Bet Sh’an, Emek Hefer and so forth, but there is only one…
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Opinion Building a New Israel, Activist by Activist
When it was first performed, all the way back in 1969, there were more than a few raised eyebrows. That performance was by Lehakat Hanachal, an immensely popular military choir. But the lyrics were very far from what one might expect of a group sponsored by the Israel Defense Forces: “S’u einayim b’tikva,/lo derech kavanot;/shiru…
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Opinion In the End, Only Candor Will Bring Peace
First, the bad news: As we all learned to say years ago — even before the year 2000 and the outbreak of the second intifada — Israel has no partner for peace. Or so, at least, Israelis believe. For Ariel Sharon, the absence of a credible partner was a strategic assessment, leading directly the calamitous…
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Opinion The Song Remains the Same
Among my friends, there are several who travel back and forth to Israel four or five times a year, sometimes even more. Perhaps the magic wears off, the trip becomes entirely routine. I manage one or two trips a year, and though there have by now been many trips, stretching back more than half a…
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Opinion We Live in a World of Judaisms
At our Seder table, the Four Questions are introduced by a brief commentary noting that they are meant as illustrations of question-asking, be the questions trivial, picayune or cosmic. Anything goes. (Except, of course, “When do we eat?”) In that spirit, I’ve decided that it may be useful now and then to pose questions that…
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Opinion We Need Lots More Than the Holocaust
Let’s talk about Jeremiah. Well, not exactly about Jeremiah, but about Jeremiah’s mindset — specifically, about the prophet’s punishing predictions regarding the future history of our people. What makes the matter pertinent just now is the controversy surrounding Pastor John Hagee. I wrote in this space recently, and quite critically, of Hagee’s “explanation” of the…
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