Opinions

If you are like me, you were horrified at the scenes shown on the nightly news concerning the death of the young boy being carried from the shoreline by the Turkish policeman. My thoughts drifted to this scene as I sat in synagogue on Yom Kippur. The rabbi’s sermon focused on immigration to the United States and all the related issues. Resolving these issues is not as simple as some presidential candidates would like us to believe. More importantly, the rabbi was talking to the congregation about the Jewish values surrounding immigration. He pointed out that the Torah reminds us 33 times that we were once strangers in the land of Egypt. Even today, there are people who want to leave their homeland. Syrian refugees would love to emigrate to the United States or Europe, or just about anywhere they would be welcomed.

Gun control debate  

Ellen Portnoy gives a number of reasons why she writes favoring gun control — Sept. 10, 2015.  The first is the understandable emotional grief reaction to the senseless violence inflicted on her friends;  criminal  acts for which there is no excuse.  However, emotional reaction is a poor foundation for policy decisions.

Not a single day went by during the course of 5775 when there wasn’t at least one terror attack perpetrated against Israeli civilians, IDF soldiers or other security personnel, whether by Palestinian terrorists operating from Judea, Samaria, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda terrorists orchestrating attacks along the borders with Lebanon and Syria or ISIS cells launching attacks from Egypt’s terrorist laden Sinai Peninsula.

The right to bear arms is non-negotiable 

Ellen Portnoy’s commentary on gun control could not be any more misguided. If she had gotten the facts right I would be more amenable to her position.

It was April 13, 2014.

Everyone in the Kansas City Jewish community remembers where they were when they heard about the shooting at the Jewish Community Campus. For us, it ranks right along with how our parents’ generation remembers where they were when JFK was shot, how our grandparents remember where they were when D-Day and Pearl Harbor occurred, and our peers remember the exact moment the twin towers went down. Even our 7-year-old daughter remembers 4/13.

The song from the musical “Annie” begins with these lyrics: “The sun will come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun.” However, for our daughter Elizabeth, there will be no more tomorrows or sunshine.

It has been a bizarre week in Kansas. First has been the trial of the man who killed two people at the Jewish Community Campus and one at Village Shalom in April 2014. I know his name, but it is not worth saying. He wants the publicity. He is a sick demented man who was able to get guns and act out on his baseless hatred.

Throughout the year each of us searches for meaning. This search becomes more intensified as we anticipate the start of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and contemplate the other important holidays that follow in rapid succession. Our sages instituted the sounding of the shofar during the month of Elul to stir our souls in order to awaken us to the importance of the coming weeks — not just days — of awe. 

“Firing sequence complete! Salute given! Fire!”

With that, I pushed the red “FIRE” button and launched a $45,000,000 F-18 Hornet Fighter jet from the deck of the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman in the middle of the Atlantic.

How do I describe that experience? AWESOME.

In recent months, I have read the terms and details of the proposed nuclear deal with Iran and listened to the testimony of numerous senior administration officials responsible for crafting and negotiating it. Informed by this information as well as classified intelligence analysis, I believe this proposal falls short of its goal to prevent Iran’s nuclear weapons capability. Back in Kansas during August, conversations with many people from across the state have only reinforced my conviction that the world can and must do better than this potentially dangerous deal.