After the battle with Midian, the Torah tells us that the generals and captains, who were officers over the army’s divisions, approached Moshe. They said to him, “We have taken a census of the warriors under our command and not a single man has been lost!” (31:48-49) more

A peaceful stretch of road on a quiet summer’s night; a young couple with a four month old baby in an infant seat is driving home; nothing out if the ordinary. Except that they were driving up from Beer Sheva. As an IDF officer in the Paratrooper reserves, our son-in-law Eliel might be called up at any moment. And it seemed prudent for Maayan, our daughter, in the midst of her medical school finals, not to have to negotiate the air raid sirens alone. As such, they were driving up from Beer Sheva with our grandson Amitai to stay with us. more

Progressive talking heads and liberal columnists claim that a bill that passed the Senate guarantees action to secure the border. Sometimes they add that President Obama has deported more illegal aliens than any president in history. Those claims are lies. more

President Barack Obama stated admiringly that in Abbas, “Israel has a counterpart committed to a two-state solution and security cooperation with Israel.” Obama could not, however, bring himself to say something positive about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. more

Although I have so much to be grateful for, I feel a familiar itch coming on. With apologies to my readers, this week I’m going to vent. I’ve earned it. more

Parshat Pinchas contains the maftir readings for all of the Biblical holidays. Every holiday had a specific set of korbanot (offerings) that were brought in its honor. A similarity running across all of the holidays is a single goat which was brought as a chatat (sin offering) to atone for the sins of the people. more

If you want the measure of how American policy has clumsily tailed the shifting system of alliances in the Middle East, look no further than the op-ed titled “Iraq Must Not Come Apart,” published in the New York Times by Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations. more

On June 12 three Jewish Israeli boys were kidnapped — Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Frenkel. Naftali had dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship. Their terrorist kidnappers killed them almost immediately. more

The heat was unbearable, but no one was thinking about the heat that day; there were 150,000 people who had gathered to pay their last respects. more

Once again we come upon a new summer season of downtime from work. However, there is no downtime in reading for the devoted bookworm. more