What was it like to grow up in a communal children’s house on an Israeli kibbutz? Rachel Biale was born in 1952 and raised on Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin, overlooking the Jordan River. She is the author of the new memoir Growing Up Below Sea Level: A Kibbutz Childhood.

A truly captivating story, Picture of His Life asks us if a career-capping achievement can truly liberate us from a dark and difficult past.

As an Israeli citizen and white citizen of the United States, I believe that Black Lives Matter – and that no American of good conscience can simply opt out of engaging with the pervasive issue of racism in America. If we will it, it is no dream.

A classmate recently snapped a photo of a billboard promoting Israel’s right-wing Yachad party that read: “So there won’t be a child with a father and a father!”

After this long 500-day journey, it is a relief to finally have a government. Is it the government of our dreams? Absolutely not. But it is, hopefully, a functioning government.

This week, as we read the call to proclaim liberty throughout the land, as those in the Land begin to emerge from isolation, our freedoms are still limited. It is up to us to use this moment as a reset, a Jubilee, a chance to re-evaluate what we should hold dearest.  To ensure that we are truly free, we must actualize the freedom of all the inhabitants of the Land.

We at the Israel Religious Action Center are eternal optimists.

During this time of social isolation, when we cannot physically be together, we are continuing to think about and plan for the day after. In spite of the threat that this global pandemic poses to

As a family mediator and the parent of four children, I have found comfort and logic in the kibbutz response to this crisis – a laser focus on the responsibility to its members.

Just as each of us goes through a process of self-examination during the Days of Repentence in Tishrei, this week is an opportunity to do so on a collective and national level.