March 27, 2021

When a Black Life doesn't Matter to Microsoft

In a blog post last year, Microsoft's CEO, Satya Nadella said they do:  With significant input from employees and leaders who are members of the Black and African American community, we have developed a set of actions that we believe ar...

May 10, 2020

Calculating the odds for Joe Biden

Let's talk probabilities. According to Census reports for 1990, America's population totaled just over 250 million.  Just over 42,000 of them lived in San Luis Obispo, California. You don't need a degree — or any train...

April 7, 2020

Note to the Trump-hating media: Just shut up and say, 'Thank you'

I once had a litigation funding client who'd asked for $100,000 to fund the costs of an appeal regarding proceeds from her family business.  A year went by after wiring her the money with no word of the case. I needed to drive past h...

April 5, 2020

Why so many Jews don't like Trump

Last night, I listened to a speech on YouTube by the historian Victor Davis Hanson.  In it, he describes attending high school in a place where only four people of his graduating class went on to college. In large part, that was because ...

November 24, 2019

The end of Judaism in America?

The story is told of two women from rabbinic families who came recently to Shaarey Zedek Congregation in Southfield, Michigan to discuss Jewish peoplehood.  They are tied together by the synagogue, an institute, and the Conservative movemen...

November 21, 2019

What Millennials don't get about 'what's in a name'

The story is told of a Jewish woman who didn't like her name. In a Times of Israel blog post, Sarah Halle Corey complains that her grandfather changed it more than 70 years ago, from Cohen to Corey.  The family had moved from Brookly...

November 8, 2019

What I learned competing on The Moth Radio Hour

This week, I competed in a local version of The Moth Radio Hour for National Public Radio.  There were about 200 people attending the competition in downtown Ann Arbor, MI, in a public space operated by the Zingerman's firm. Whe...

October 31, 2019

Jews are on an express train to self-elimination if demographic trends continue

The story is told of two bar mitzvah ceremonies, in the same family, 80 years apart. The first boy lived in a Polish city.  Although the family owned a business, the parents insisted that each of their sons learn a productive trade. ...

September 26, 2019

Trump's UN speeches really beat Obama's, don't they?

Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly this week, President Donald J. Trump stood solidly on the side of those who believe in national sovereignty. He said: America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and w...

August 29, 2019

Why Trump should sue for peace with the Federal Reserve

President Donald Trump ripped into Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell on Friday, questioning whether he is a "bigger enemy" to the United States than Chinese president Xi Jinping (CNBC). The president appears now to be waging wars si...

August 20, 2019

How far will leftists go to co-opt Judaism?

The story is told of a kid who walked up to my father's business with puppies on a leash. "You wanna by a poodle?" he asked. "Nah," we said, "but how did you find polka dot poodles?" "Those aren't p...

August 7, 2019

The complicated case of the Jews of Lithuania

You will never get where you want to go without understanding what's in the other person's mind. That is what I try, usually unsuccessfully, teaching my children.  It is a lesson that modern Jewry might keep in mind as events pla...

July 6, 2019

America and Judaism suffering from the same maladies

The story is told of an encounter between Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and a young law student.  "The Constitution," said Justice Ginsburg, "is old, outdated, from a different era and should be replaced." ...

June 19, 2019

Why I dislike casual dress religious services

With the arrival of summer, clergy at our synagogue have declared the beginning of "casual Shabbat."  Until autumn, we are invited to attend services in casual attire, or coats and tie if we prefer.  This is not uncommon...

June 13, 2019

Did God break his word to the Jews?

"I think that's the first time I've listened to a sermon from a rabbi.  Did I understand him correctly that he was saying God had broken His word to the Jews?"  That's what my Facebook friend Jeff DeWitt said a...

June 4, 2019

Do Democrats really want to repeal tax cuts for Americans?

From The Hill:  Former Vice President Joe Biden made it clear: "First thing I'd do is repeal those Trump tax cuts." Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) seconded the motion, saying she would repeal the tax cuts on...

May 29, 2019

Biden proves yet again he's an idiot, this time on China

Recently, Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden said, "China is going to eat our lunch?  Come on, man...they can't even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mou...

May 16, 2019

Dem presidential candidates still want to cancel Trump's tax cuts

There's just one problem: although individual income tax rates have gone down since 2017, individual income tax revenues have gone up. According to the White House budget office, Federal Tax revenues were as follows: Y...

May 15, 2019

Cory Booker gets serious about BS

Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker came out strongly this weekend against Islamic terror and vowed if elected to fight it relentlessly. "So, when I'm president of the United States, I'm taking a fight to this issue like fol...

May 15, 2019

Here's an example of the illegal aliens Trump is trying to deport

A Guatemalan man involved in large-scale distribution of false ID documents in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area was sentenced this week to six months time served and ordered deported back to Guatemala. Good news or bad news? Here is the case, as...

May 1, 2019

American Jews are eliminating American Jewry

I'm an American Jew with graduate degree in economic statistics, econometrics.  I prefer reducing things to numbers. There are about 5 million Jews in America, roughly 90% of them non-Orthodox.  I'm among the 90%. ...

April 30, 2019

How do we know that Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein is a conservative?

Rabbi Goldstein is the Chabad rabbi who was injured Saturday at the synagogue he leads in Poway, Calif.  One woman was killed, and two others besides the rabbi were injured. 1. He loves, not hates America. 2. He is a warrior, not a vi...

April 21, 2019

Western civilization on suicide watch

In large part for demographic reasons, I am pessimistic about the future for America and the West.  My mother died recently, just shy of 94 years old.  She left seven grandchildren: two medical doctors, one doctor of physical therapy; an...

January 16, 2019

A female rabbi from Berkeley wants me to give up my white supremacy

Rebekah Stern, associate rabbi at Congregation Beth El in Berkeley and a member of the California Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, told a panel recently: I hope Jews of Ashkenazi descent will begin or continue their own individual proc...

January 11, 2019

US fertility numbers not looking good for Democrats

A story in yesterday's Wall Street Journal explains what's really behind the border war, pitting Donald Trump against the Democratic Party.  The link is here. Entitled "Fertility Rate Varies Widely Across US," it shows ...

December 16, 2018

How to Honor the 11 Jews Killed in Pittsburgh: Have More Children

Here's a way of honoring the 11 Jews killed while attending Sabbath services at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh: encourage each congregation to have 11 new births, above two children per family. This idea comes from what the moth...

November 30, 2018

Six quick questions for Progressives

Migration: Do you think many or most of the Mexican caravan members are entitled under U.S. laws to asylum, or do you see them as coming here in search of jobs and to reunite with family members already here?  Does the following trouble you...

October 9, 2017

Liberal rabbis and Donald Trump

Are liberal Jews – and their rabbis – committing a sin in the way they address President Donald J. Trump? That question was provoked by a recent "analysis" in Haaretz titled "Is Trump Really a Moron or Jus...

September 27, 2017

Non-Orthodox Jewish rabbis boycott President聽Donald J. Trump's call

All but the Orthodox rabbis boycotted a pre-holidays conference call meant for the president to wish them a good year. Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, CEO of the Conservative Movement's Rabbinical Assembly, said that while she will not participate in t...

September 16, 2017

Some reflections on the Jews in Charlottesville

My grandfather, Sol H. Young, was born in Chweidan (Kvedarna), Lithuania, in 1896 and served from 1956-1958 as mayor of Cadillac, Michigan. He was not a religious man, thoroughly enjoying a secular life in small-town northern Michigan. Thoughts of...