Dec. 10, 2009 DANIEL GORDIS , THE JERUSALEM POST It's been almost a year since St.-Sgt. Dvir Emanuelof became the first casualty of Operation Cast Lead, losing his life to Hamas mortar fire just as he entered Gaza early in the offensive. But sitting with his mother, Dalia, in her living room last week, I was struck not by loss, but by life. And not by grief, but by fervent belief. And by a more recent story about Dvir that simply needs to be told, especially now at Hanukka, our season of miracles. This ...

Nov. 26, 2009 DANIEL GORDIS , THE JERUSALEM POST 'It never even occurred to me that the Jews were a people." I had just finished speaking on Shabbat morning at a traditional shul on Long Island. The talk had been about the nation-state and its roots in the Book of Genesis. Along the way, I'd made some comments about the changing nature of American Jewish life today, and the ...

Yonatan Raz'el is an Orthodox singer whose music transcends all boundaries to reach out to people from all walks of life.  His first album, All in All (or Sakh Hakol), was released in 2007.  That same year, Raz'el was named Jewish Vocalist of the Year by YNet; his songs have been played on Army Radio here in Israel.

We didn’t mean to, but we lied to our kids. Almost ten years ago, shortly after we made aliyah, we were sitting with our three young children having dinner. One of the boys, still getting used to the idea that his life was going to be very different in Israel, looked up from his food, and asked out of nowhere, “Is Israel still going to have an army when I’m eighteen?” He was scared. But we knew that he had no reason to be. “Yes, there’ll be an army,” we told him. “But there’s going to be peace by then. By the time you’re eighteen, everything’s going to be different. You’ll see.” I still remember how certain we were, and how relieved he looked. A couple of ...