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By DANIEL A. BROWN

 Before the coming presidential election drives us all crazy, let’s take a break and read about something we can all (hopefully) agree on, namely, the Boston Red Sox.This for me is unusual as I grew up in New York City and was 11 years old when the...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

Over the years, I’ve read numerous accusations against Israel, all of which defy reality. According to them, Zionists have committed genocide over the previous century, caused global warming, perpetrated police brutality against African Americans,...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

One thing we Jews have learned from our fraught history is that when someone threatens to kill you, they mean it. History itself teaches that when a psychopathic strongman threatens to establish a vengeful dictatorship, they mean it as well. Donald...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

In 2017, in reaction to the revelations about the sexual misconduct of Harvey Weinstein that led to the creation of the #MeToo movement, feminist activist Eve Ensler (“The Vagina Monologues”) wrote the following: “I’m over the passivity of good men....

By DANIEL A. BROWN

The most disconcerting aspect for me of the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian dogfight is the sheer ignorance about Israel being espoused by usually educated progressives in the Valley and elsewhere. Instead of learning the long, complex and nuanced...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

It is difficult to read the details of the horrific Oct. 7 massacre perpetrated on Israel by Hamas without wondering if you had accidentally stumbled upon one of the more gruesome episodes from “Game of Thrones.” I’ll spare you but it’s illuminating...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

This past July, I was flying home from visiting family back East and was about to board the final leg from Atlanta to Albuquerque. In the gangway leading to our aircraft, I noticed a gaggle of teenage girls talking loudly and enthusiastically, waving...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

Back during the civil rights era, a certain billboard began to appear across the rural South. It showed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sitting with an integrated group, apparently listening to a lecture. The caption underneath proclaimed in big, bold...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

Before my friends in the local peace movement choke on their gluten-free bagels, I want them to imagine that it’s August 1945, not August 2023. That means that the great social, political and spiritual transformations of the 1960s never happened. You...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

I’ve always enjoyed the Fourth of July, perhaps the most joyous holiday in the American spectrum. The day invokes memories of hot dogs and ice cream cones, kids riding bicycles festooned with American flags and, of course, fireworks.Greenfield has...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

Back in my elementary school teaching days, I allowed my fourth grade students to bring in a special toy or small stuffie to place on their desks to give them comfort. A month or so into the term, one of the boys, whom I will call Larry, brought in...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

In 1977, as I was about to depart for my first trip to Israel, I went to a party in New York City and met a young Israeli boy. “Hello, my name is Raffi,” he said. “I’ve lived through three wars.”Naturally, I was taken aback; as a rule, American kids...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

After Black teenager Emmett Till was brutally tortured and murdered by two white men in Mississippi, his mother, Mamie, committed a daring, outrageous and provocative act. At her son’s funeral, she chose an open casket so the world could see the...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

A myth has surfaced over the past year about the war in Ukraine, embraced and expressed by certain members of local and national peace groups. According to them, Vladimir Putin is really a nice guy who was reluctantly coerced into invading his...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

I collect old LIFE magazines and was recently surprised to see a two-page advertisement in a February 1962 issue by Esso (Later Exxon) boasting that each day, they “Supply enough energy to melt 7 million tons of glacier!” Those were the exact words...

By DANIEL A. BROWN

Donald J. Trump exhibits behavior that were your teenage children doing the same, you would ground them for a decade. Any women with a husband who delights in daily lies, insults and cruelty would divorce him in a heartbeat. So how then does Trump get...