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Showing posts from November, 2013

Reflections from the General Assembly in Jerusalem: Politics, Marriage, Kotel

What a wonderful experience it has been at the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly - one of the largest annual gatherings of American Jewish communal leaders!  This gathering takes place in Jerusalem once every five years (and takes place at a variety of American cities on the remaining years).  It is one of the more 'high-power' conferences of the Jewish world, and this year’s speaker list reflected this: we heard from Prime Minister Netanyahu; President Shimon Peres; Finance Minister Yair Lapid; Labor opposition leader Sheli Yachimovich; and a wide variety of other Knesset members and Israeli and American civic and business leaders. This was my first effort at live-tweeting a conference. I admire those who can do it fluently, but I found it difficult and distracting. I much prefer to sum up my thoughts after the fact.  So here are some observations: International Politics.   Netanyahu’s speech became a newsworthy event because he used it to respond