Love in the golden years: cohabitors need protection

Consider the plight of my friend, let's call her Barbara. A widow, a vivacious, smart and active woman "of a certain age," she found love again more than a decade ago with a widower. After a long time of dating, she moved in with him. Let's call him X. They seemed perfect for each other, …

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Books: non-fiction, early spring reviews

How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion by David McRaney offers what could be an eye-opening look at how to talk to “the other.” It’s about much more than when every day becomes Thanksgiving Day and seemingly reasonable people turn out to be crazy Uncle Harry. McRaney shares what he has …

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Books: a fictional interlude in our non-fictional life

Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein is a short, dense and intense meditation on what it means to be an outsider and a survivor. The first-person narrator speaks directly to the reader spinning the tale of how, as a child, her family had taught her to subdue her own wants and silence her own voice …

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Israel’s response to Hamas: when does enough become too much?

The October 7th Hamas terrorist attack on Israel was barbaric, gut-wrenching and a blatant violation of international law. For many, especially those whose extended families have been caught up in the terror, the attack was also deeply personal. At least 1200 Israelis were killed, many of them raped and dismembered. The much-vaunted Israeli intelligence apparatus …

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