Leonard Zwelling

The Bystander Effect-The Real Message of the Gonzalez-Angulo Trial to Date By Leonard Zwelling          In March of 1964, a young woman was stabbed to death in Kew Gardens, Queens, New York City. Her name was Kitty Genovese. In the weeks after the murder, a disturbing set of events came to light. It appeared that […]

Another Embarrassment at 1515 By Leonard Zwelling          I love Law and Order. I could watch it all day long. Sure, most of the episodes have exactly the same rhythm. Sure, Jack McCoy is a sanctimonious liberal pain in the butt whose assistant is always a beautiful woman. Sure, the DAs consist of rotating pillars

Walking On Empty: Pink Ribbons on Sack Cloth By Leonard Zwelling          Jewish holidays are very hard for non-Jews to understand. (Heck, it’s hard for us to understand.) This is because the calendar most of us use is a solar calendar and the Jewish calendar a lunar one. The result of this is that while

Leaving Home, Going Home By Leonard Zwelling          Wheels up. Soon I will be watching one of the selection of awful movies United serves up on the flight into Newark from Tel Aviv. I may try to sleep for two weeks of walking the desert sands of the Makhtesh Ramon, the cobble stones of the

Defining Borders By Leonard Zwelling          Since the start of my blogging from Israel, I have referred to various peoples and geographies without defining them. This was an error, but it is just as well that I made it for if I had defined these critical terms two weeks ago, I would have gotten them

Tunnels: If It’s Saturday in Jerusalem It Must Be Time for the History of Early Christianity By Leonard Zwelling          What are you going to do in the most religious Jewish city in the world on the Sabbath? Go to the Christian sites, of course. In the past on a Saturday in Jerusalem, we climbed

Finding Masada Empty and Yad Vashem Full By Leonard Zwelling          When the Romans finally breached the outer walls of the high desert mesa and former palace of King Herod called Masada in 73 AD, they found that all but a few women and children of the almost 1000 Jewish rebels who had lived atop

Patients From the West Bank; Five Miles From Gaza; Swimming in the Negev; the Significance of Ramon By Leonard Zwelling          Abraham was sick and his father Ayman knew it. For two years his first-born was complaining and getting weaker. He was not himself. The doctors in all of the hospitals to which he was

What Makes You Good Makes Your Country Better By Leonard Zwelling          For 4000 years, Tel Aviv was a sandy, barren suburb north of the port city of Jaffa on the Mediterranean coast. Jaffa was once the major port of this part of Palestine. Today, about 100 years after its founding, Tel Aviv is the

War? What War? By Leonard Zwelling          The sun poured into the breakfast room several floors above the beach in Tel Aviv on our first morning in Israel. The surfers were out. The volley ballers were active and the chaise lounges awaited the sun bathers. Does this look like a country at war? Not at