Do we now live in a high-crime area? This is the perception many people are getting after a string of daytime and nighttime burglaries and hold-ups have plagued our neighborhoods. Not only were valuable possessions lost, all of us, and in particular the victims of the break-ins and muggings, are left feeling vulnerable and violated.

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Michelle and Alan* are still traumatized after what they found following their return home from a mini-vacation. Their door had been kicked in and was ajar. “I was in total shock, and we are still pretty traumatized by it,” Michelle said. They found the door kicked in and the house ransacked, with many things taken. There had been no cars in their driveway for 24 hours, but they usually have their house alarm on. On that day, it seems the babysitter may not have set the alarm correctly when leaving to take the kids to school. Their home was one of several in their neighborhood that have been broken into within a few short weeks.

In a frightening scene for Jewish students, protestors at the Million Student March at Hunter College on November 15 screamed, “Zionists out of CUNY!” and “Intifada! Intifada! Long live the Intifada.” Though the nationwide demonstrations were aimed at demanding tuition-free education and the cancellation of student debt, the organizers produced blatantly anti-Semitic tropes both before and during their events, including this Facebook announcement for the Hunter rally:

The Zionist administration [of the college] invests in Israeli companies…that support the Israeli occupation, hosts…study abroad programs in occupied Palestine, and reproduces settler-colonial ideology throughout CUNY through Zionist content of education….”

Five years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), more famously known as Obamacare, open season has come around again. As our mailboxes fill with offers and reminders from insurance companies, and ads appear encouraging us to sign up, I thought it would be a good time to look at how this momentous and highly controversial change in the medical system is playing out on the ground along Park Heights and Greenspring Avenues. Do more people have access to health insurance? Have the costs gone down? Who has been helped by the law and who not – and why? And how have doctors been affected?

Imagine this: Today is the first day of your new job. It’s a 15-minute commute. Although you hadn’t planned it this way, last night you ended up going out with some friends and didn’t get back until the wee hours. Then you didn’t hear the alarm in the morning and woke up 10 minutes before you were supposed to leave. As you rush around to get dressed, you realize that your good suit needs cleaning, so you hurriedly search the closet for another one, along with a shirt to go with it. Realizing there is no time to eat the hearty breakfast you had planned, you grab a nutrition bar on the way out the door and drive off. Too late, you realize you left your lunch in the fridge. Although you race through traffic, you arrive at work 10 minutes late and in a frazzle from the morning’s experience. You think, “What a way to start a new job!”With this beginning, what are the chances that you will feel prepared to do your best work that day, and – and if this becomes a pattern – all the other days on this job? (What are the chances that you will still have this job down the road?)

There’s a new organization in town, and they are not seeking your money! Rather, they are looking for your commitment to take part in an innovative idea which aims to help Israeli businesses. They are selling nothing other than a concept. A new piece of “must-have” Judaica is being introduced to the Baltimore/Washington area. Called the “Klee,” and it will serve a purpose close to the Jewish heart. Just as most Jewish homes usually have at least a mezuza, a Chanukah menorah, and Shabbos candlesticks, the Klee (which you may very well already have in your house) will also be used in a meaningful Jewish way. It is a designated dish for Israeli products.

Remember the good old days when the only thing the Israelis had to worry about was being wiped off the map by their enemies? (Oh wait, that is still a problem.) But remember the other good old days when Jews for Jesus used to hand out pamphlets trying to convince Jews to convert? Or when the main evangelizing problem we faced was how to fit the unsolicited books and tapes we receive from Sid Roth and his ilk into the trash? It used to be, you could pretty much tell when someone was eager to share the “good news.” But in Israel, who worried about that sort of thing? It’s a Jewish State!