At no point in history was the Hebrew word for “friend” more popular than after President Bill Clinton uttered those two famous words as he eulogized his assassinated friend, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Jerusalem in 1995. “Shalom Chaver” quickly became a famous slogan and bumper sticker quote. Now, one man who was Yitzhak Rabin’s friend,…
The highlight of the AIPAC Policy Conference so far has been the exhibit on Israeli technological innovation in the AIPAC Village. The bottom floor of the Washington Convention Center, called AIPAC Village, is where D.C.’s annual auto show is held so it is the perfect location to display the America-Israel Racing’s NASCAR race car, an…
I had to laugh today as I was reading Deborah Feldman’s new book Unorthodox on an airplane. The author was reflecting on the forbidden books she bought as a young Satmar girl (she has since left that community). The ultra-Orthodox world of Deborah Feldman’s youth banned secular books, including any book with English, from all members…
Originally published in The Jewish Week As I walked around the recent International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, one thing was impossible to miss. Mobile applications are being integrated everywhere and into everything. Smartphones are no longer the only devices on which users are downloading their favorite apps. 2010 saw a proliferation of iPhones…
A version of this appeared on the JTA.org website Bill Gates paid a visit to Steve Jobs toward to the end of the Apple visionary’s life. The two technology giants talked about the future of education. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs, both men agreed that computers had made surprisingly little impact on schools….
Cross-posted to the Jewish Techs blog at The Jewish Week With today’s 10-second tease video with Matthew Broderick hinting at a “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” sequel, it is only fitting to take a close look at Ben Stein’s ongoing legal battle with Kyocera. Stein, who played the memorable high school teacher in the 1986 movie…
I’ve been thinking about death and mourning quite a bit lately. To begin with, the first week of the new year brought with it a rash of deaths here in the Detroit Jewish community. There were a fair share of elderly grandparents who died in their 80s and 90s during the first week of 2012,…
Cross-posted on the “Jewish Techs” blog on The Jewish Week website Like many American rabbis who relocate to Israel on aliyah, Rabbi Naftali “Tuly” Weisz began to look for a way to make a difference in the Holy Land. The 30-something Modern Orthodox rabbi had already made some significant relationships with the Israel-loving Evangelical Christian…
Originally published in The Detroit Jewish News There’s An App For That!Local brothers’ jacAPPS business rolls out more than 500 mobile apps. In what could have easily been mistaken for a scene from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, two brothers sit at a conference room table in Southfield bouncing ideas off each other for mobile applications that…
This is my recent “Jews in the Digital Age” column for the Detroit Jewish News: Sally Whittle is a blogger in Lancashire, England. Her blog “Who’s the Mummy?” is one of approximately 4 million “mommy blogs” on the Web. Like many other young mothers she journals about her life as a mother and provides advice…