Israeli Ambassador to the United State, Michael Oren

‘If the Government Can Survive One Week, It’ll Survive a Month’: An Interview with Michael Oren

In a Moment Zoominar on Tuesday, historian and former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, who also served as a member of Israel’s 20th Knesset, spoke about Israel's new government. Watch the complete zoominar here. Can you give us a brief overview of this new coalition government? There are eight parties in this coalition. Naftali Bennett will be Prime Minister for two years; after that Yair Lapid, the centrist, will take over. The eight parties include, on the left, Meretz and Labor, and on the right, Gideon Sa'ar’s party, New Hope, as well as Naftali Bennett’s Yamina (“Rightwards”) party. And also in the coalition is the Blue and White party of Benny Gantz, the former Chief of Staff of the army and my former military attache at Washington. I know Benny quite well. We've had...

Continue reading

Mayim Bialik in Call Me Kat

Mayim Bialik Is Back—Though Was She Ever Really Gone?

It feels like Mayim Bialik is everywhere. She is talking about mental health on her new podcast “The Breakdown with Mayim Bialik”; she is hosting a seven-minute Passover seder and leading a Shavuot vegan blintz cooking demo on her YouTube channel that has over a million subscribers; she is giving parenting advice on kveller.com or in one of her many books; she is on the omnipresent reruns of The Big Bang Theory, playing scientist Amy Farrah Fowler, and on her new FOX show Call Me Kat, where she plays the owner of a Louisville cat café; and, most recently, she has been a guest host of Jeopardy! Moment spoke with the actress-neuroscientist-author on being an observant Jew in Hollywood, the origins of Jewish humor and if rumors of a Blossom reboot are true.  Your new show, Call...

Continue reading

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin

Parting Words from President Reuven Rivlin

Reuven Rivlin was elected President of Israel by the Knesset in June 2014. He will complete his seven year term in July 2021. As the head of state, he holds mainly ceremonial powers. His most important role, in practice, is to help lead in the process of forming a government. After an election, he consults with party leaders to determine who is most likely to achieve a majority in the Knesset. He is doing that at this very moment. Rivlin was born in Jerusalem to a family that had lived in Israel since 1809. His father, Yosef Yoel Rivlin, was a scholar of Arabic language and literature. His political career began in in the Knesset in 1988 as a member of the Likud party. He was a speaker of the Knesset for eight years. In 2015,...

Continue reading

American Baby

‘American Baby’: Ethics of Jewish Adoption Explored Through a Tragic Family Story

Best-selling author Gabrielle Glaser’s new book, American Baby, starts with a dying cantor’s search for a mother he never met. It shares the intimate, intricate stories of two Jewish families: the teen couple in love who gave him life and the loving Holocaust survivors who raised him. It also unveils—in incredibly rich detail—a disturbing history of adoption practices in America, and in the American Jewish community, in the mid-20th century. Glaser is mom to three girls she birthed and raised and is neither an adoptee nor “birth mom.” As a journalist, though, she has been fascinated by the subject of adoption for nearly 20 years. From her home in Montclair, New Jersey, she talked with interviewer (and adoptive mom of two) Minna Scherlinder Morse. You’ve written an incredible book, meticulously researched and captivatingly told. For those...

Continue reading