| King and Constitution - 30 October 2025 |
| My mother took me to Europe when I was nine years old, and we spent most of our time in England. Every day we visited castles and cathedrals, and I loved them, though I didn't have an overall context for them. But then a few years later I found an introduction to the history of England in our Junior High School library, and reading that (more than once, I think) helped me understand how all those things that I had seen fit together. I still especially enjoy British history, and so when the N . . .(more) |
| Hagar and Ishmael - 28 September 2025 |
| Every year in the fall we start reading the Torah in the synagogue, and we go on reading one section every week until we have finished it, just in time to start over at the same time the next year. In addition to this annual cycle, on our (many!) holidays we do special, out-of-sequence readings. Generally these are sections of the Torah that discuss the holiday concerned, so it’s clear why they were chosen. But on Rosh HaShana, the New Year, the reading is a bit surprising a . . .(more) |
| Coming Home from Serendib - 24 August 2025 |
| Tonight I head home after almost a month here in Sri Lanka. As always, I have learned a lot, though I have barely scratched the surface of what there is to know about this beautiful place. The pictures here show a few different sides of the experience of being here. The first one is from a courtyard near the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. Next is a very large butterfly that was hovering over the flowers near my room. Third is a picture from a school group that came to see a tra . . .(more) |
| Kandy Wildlife - 11 August 2025 |
| I arrived yesterday in Kandy, the main city in the highlands of Sri Lanka. Long after the rest of the island was controlled by European countries, an independent kingdom held on up here. The last king of Kandy, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, built a beautiful lake beside his palace, and it remains one of the jewels of the city. On the two mile long walk around the lake you typically see lots of birds, and I wasn’t disappointed today, but there were some less usual animals as well. . . .(more) |
| The Years Pass More Quickly - 2 August 2025 |
| It’s truly hard to believe that it’s already August second again. On this day in 1917 my father, Arnold Fox, was born in the Bronx. On the same day of the year in 1953, Beverly Fried was born in Dayton, Ohio. The picture I have attached here shows us together (with Mom, Reva, Deena, and Tamar) in London in the summer of 1985. My father was two years younger than I am now, and Bev was a youthful and beautiful thirty-two. I always miss them both, but seeing our family toget . . .(more) |
| Renana and Brooke's Wedding - 24 June 2025 |
| On Sunday Renana and Brooke were married in the presence of more than a hundred family and friends. The ceremony took place at a startlingly beautiful location far out in the country in New Mexico. (Though Renana and Brooke live in Washington, Brooke has close ties to New Mexico, and it is a beautiful place to be married.) A number of us came in on Friday and spent Shabbat relaxing, talking, eating, swimming, and playing lawn games with the couple. The next day the rest of the guests arrived . . .(more) |
| Members' Night - 16 May 2025 |
| Last Wednesday was members’ night at the Field Museum. The museum is housed in an enormous, beautiful building on the Chicago lakeshore. It has a wonderful collection of exhibits about all kinds of plants and animals and a wide variety of human cultures. The elementary school I went to in DeKalb did a field trip to one of the Chicago museums every year, and often we went to the Field Museum. I loved it then, and I still do. It’s worth a visit at any time, but members’ nights are a spe . . .(more) |
| Winters - 21 March 2025 |
| A poem about winter, as spring takes its place: Winters Because they had the very latest deadline there procrastination steered my mother to grad school in Iowa. The cold of Indiana where she grew had not prepared her for the cruel sharp prairie winds that blasted her with frigid air. While struggling through the elements she felt all brave and strong. Years later when she landed with my dad and me . . .(more) |
| Jerusalem Sunset - 18 March 2025 |
| Avi and I are coming to the end of two months in Jerusalem. Avi has been volunteering as a pathologist at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital, and I have been spending mornings studying Talmud at the Conservative Yeshiva. Besides studying Talmud, I read a collection of short stories in Hebrew, and worked on improving my speaking ability. This year I also took lessons in spoken Arabic, an addition to my yearly program that I liked very much. In college and graduate school I learned to . . .(more) |
| Another Generation - 18 February 2025 |
| In 1980 Bev and I, together with a small group of friends who were dissatisfied with the alternatives in West Rogers Park where we lived, formed a new minyan (prayer group). It was lay-led, and men and women took equal parts in conducting the services. That group, which is now called Mah Tovu, still exists and is still my religious home. Very early on, Bev designed a beautiful cover for our Torah reading table. It is embroidered with the design of a tree, and all around the edg . . .(more) |
| The Mesila (the Jerusalem rail trail) - 28 January 2025 |
| The old Jaffa to Jerusalem railway dates to when Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire. It was built by a multi-ethnic consortium in the 1880’s and started service in August 1891. The route is very scenic. From Tel Aviv it crosses the coastal plain as far as Beit Shemesh, and then enters a wadi which winds up through the hills to Jerusalem. On my first trip to Israel in 1974 I took the train up to Jerusalem, and then in 1990 when our whole family spent the summer here, I . . .(more) |
| Catalunya 2025 - 17 January 2025 |
| I’m getting towards the end of my annual visit to Barcelona. This year it turned out that Reva, Nathaniel, and Abe had planned a visit to Barcelona, without even knowing that I would be here too. So we have been having a great time hanging out, and I’ve been showing them some of my favorite places. As always, I’ve also visited with some of my Catalan friends: I went to Sabadell to visit with Josep and Maria Teresa, to Manresa to see Lou and Rosa, and saw Carles Múrcia, N . . .(more) |
| My Seventieth Birthday - 19 November 2024 |
| My seventieth birthday was earlier this month. Avi and I took the train from Chicago to DC. We got a sleeping car compartment on a train that left at dinner time and arrived the next day at noon. When we woke in the morning we were in the midst of beautiful mountain scenery that continued much of the way to Washington. Once there we spent a couple of days with Renana and Deena and her family, and then on Saturday and Sunday Tamar, Jesse, Adira, Reva, Joe and Jenny all arr . . .(more) |
| Fall in Chicago - 3 November 2024 |
| The City of Chicago is full of trees, and when they are in leaf, the parks and streets are verdant. Every autumn, before the leaves fall, they turn bright, vivid colors, that are impressive even to my color-blind eyes. Many people plan trips to forested areas to see the fall leaves, but Chicago’s motto is Urbs in Horto - City in a Garden, and here you have only to walk down your own street to be struck by the beauty of this season. The colors of the fall sunsets are also especially impress . . .(more) |
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