Jerusalem Insights Digest
Moshe Avraham Kempinski, BSc., MSW, has been involved with Jewish Education and Outreach work since 1973. He has worked as a Family Therapist and Psychiatric Social Worker in Toronto, Canada and in New York, U.S.A. Today he is a journalist and teacher and co-directs the Shorashim Biblical Shop and Learning Center in the Old City of Jerusalem. He has written two books, The Teacher and the Preacher and The Heart of a People, and is the author of a weekly Jerusalem Insights commentary. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife, children, and grandchildren.
Jerusalem Insights began in 1991 when the ramifications of the so called Oslo Peace Treaty was already evident. During this period of clouded vision and wishful fantasy, a people battered for so very long yearned for easy choices and simple solutions.
During this period, any voices that raised fears or concern about the path Israel had chosen were silenced in the media or ridiculed. So, it was important to get other views out to the public and present a clearer and more intelligent assessment of the situation in this country. An e-mail journal seemed to be one of the early solutions.
We also felt it was important to reveal the hopeful, the joyful and the spiritual side of this land and her people in a time when all those aspects were clouded over. So the email journal endeavored to share personal stories that described the joy and the sadness of this special people.
With these two thoughts in mind, Jerusalem Insights began with a mailing list of thirty. It was not long before that the mailing list grew into thousands and began to be shared on other mailing lists. With HaShem's help, it should continue to achieve its purpose - to feed the mind and quench the soul.
Taste of Torah
Rabbi Chanan Morrison - After graduating with a B.A. in Mathematics from Yeshiva University (New York), Rabbi Chanan Morrison studied for several years at Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav, the Jerusalem yeshiva founded by Rav Kook in 1924. He was ordained after completing rabbinical studies in the Ohr Torah Stone (Efrat) and Midrash Sephardi (Jerusalem) rabbinical seminaries.
Rabbi Morrison taught Jewish studies for several years in Harrisburg, PA, before returning to Israel. He and his family subsequently settled down in Mitzpe Yericho, an Israeli community in the Judean Desert.
In an effort to maintain contact with former students, Rabbi Morrison began emailing weekly articles on the weekly Torah portion based on the writings of Rav Kook. Over the years, this email list grew at a phenomenal rate; it now benefits thousands of readers from all over the world.
He is frequently featured on the Torah section of the Arutz Sheva website and his work can be read on his own website at http://ravkook.n3.net.
Rabbi Lazer Brody was born in Washington, D.C. in 1949. After receiving his bachelor's degree in agriculture from the University of Maryland in 1970, he moved to Israel and joined the Israel Defense Forces regular army, and served in one of the elite special-forces units. He is a decorated combat veteran of two wars and dozens of counter-insurgence and anti-terrorist missions on both sides of Israel's borders.
After surviving a near-suicidal mission to Beirut during the Israel-Lebanon conflict of 1982, Brody could no longer ignore the hand of G-d in his life. He became a baal-tshuva and left his mountaintop farm to study Torah in Jerusalem.
Nine years of intensive Talmudic, ethics, and legal studies, led to his rabbinical ordination in 1992. He devoted another two years of postgraduate study to personal and family counseling, and subsequently spent two years as rabbi and spiritual rehabilitation director of a major Israeli prison. There, he created a highly successful program of spiritual rehabilitation for prisoners based on Tshuva.
In 1996, Brody moved to Ashdod and became the understudy of the famed Melitzer Rebbe, a contemporary giant in rabbinical law and personal counseling. Two years later, Rav Shalom Arush opened a branch of his renowned of the "Chut Shel Chessed - Breslev" Yeshiva in the port city of Ashdod, and appointed Brody as the "Rosh Kollel", or Dean of the rabbinical program.
Today, Lazer Brody dedicates his time to Jewish Outreach, and particularly to spreading the teachings of Rebbe Nachman of Breslev around the globe. You can read and hear more from Rabbi Brody at his website, Reflections of Emuna with Rabbi Lazer Brody
Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum is the author ofover twenty-five books and an interationally-known teacher of Torah spirituality, Healing, Chassidut and Kabbalah.
Born in Britain in 1949, Rabbi Greenbaum gained his MA in classics and social sciences at Cambridge University. As a Harkness Fellow he studied at Harvard and Columbia, after which he spent four years as a BBC World Service news commentator and producer.
A lifelong yearning for spirituality led to his return to Torah. In 1980 Rabbi Greenbaum moved to Israel with his wife and family and settled in Jerusalem, where he was ordained in 1988. He maintains the Azamra website, and teaches at the Tiferet Study Center.
Rabbi Greenbaum's books include Rabbi Nachman's Advice, Under the Table & How to Get Up, a handbook of Jewish pathways of spiritual growth, Wings of the Sun: The Torah Healing Tradition in theory and practice and translations of Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto's Kabbalistic classics, Secrets of the Future Temple and 138 Openings of Wisdom.
Current Events
Judy Lash Balint is a Jerusalem-based journalist and writer and author of Jerusalem Diaries: In Tense Times. (Gefen) and Jerusalem Diaries II: What's Really Happening in Israel (Xulon Press 2007) She is a contributor to the 2006 Fodor's Israel guidebook as well as the Peace Fire anthology edited by Ethan Casey and Paul Hilder (Free Association Books).In 2003 Ms. Balint received the Mosaic Award for Excellence in Feature Writing about Israeli Peoplehood, Culture and Society and took second place in the Jerusalem Foundation's Excellence in Jerusalem Reporting contest.
Ms. Balint's work has appeared in the N.Y Post, Christian Science Monitor, Bookmarks Magazine, Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz Magazine, The Forward, Seattle Times, Seattle P-I, Montreal Suburban, Moment Magazine, Jerusalem Report, World Jewish Digest, Whistleblower Magazine, Midstream, Bnai Brith International Jewish Monthly, London Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jewish Action, Emunah Magazine, Amit Magazine and numerous US Jewish weeklies.
Ms. Balint is a regular contributor to www.frontpagemag.com, www.israelinsider.com, www.jewsweek.com and www.jbooks.com.
She has been a featured guest on CNN USA and CNN International.
Ms. Balint provides occasional commentary from Jerusalem for New Zealand Public Radio; the Dave Ross Show on Seattle's CBS affiliate, KIRO Radio, 710AM; KOMO NewsRadio, Seattle's ABC affiliate; the Lee Rodgers Show on KSFO/ABC Radio in San Francisco and ClareFM in Shannon, Ireland.
Prior to making aliya in February, 1998, Ms. Balint served as national director of the Coalition for Jewish Concerns-Amcha, in addition to extensive freelance writing work.
Ms. Balint earned an M.S.W and B.A from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
You can read more from Judy at www.jerusalemdiaries.blogspot.com and Jerusalem Diaries
Land of Israel
