Feb 24, 201912 minBrick Factories, Modern Slavery, and Immigration from Rural VillagesAll over Nepal and India, brick factories rise up whenever there are patches of open land near a large city such as Kathmandu. Work...
Feb 17, 201911 minBrilliance of the Baal Shem Tov Two hundred and fifty years after the Baal Shem Tov’s death, English readers finally have a scholarly compilation of some of his most...
Feb 14, 20198 minThe Art of Living How Ethiopian Israelis became Masters of Living on Less There is an art to living on 2500 shekels a month, and many within the Ethiopian...
Feb 14, 201913 minYamima Avital: First Jewish Woman Mystic with her Own Written TorahPunch Yamima Avital's name into a (Hebrew) Internet search engine and you will find forums with endless exchanges of information about...
Feb 13, 201918 minJudaism and the Crisis of the Rural Village in the Global SouthFor many of us nourished and inspired by the integrity and spiritual depth of the Orthodox tradition at its best, how to apply Torah to...
Feb 12, 201917 minCave of the Patriarchs The Cave Below the earth's surface, where it is cool, damp and deep, a great light—a blinding light--is waiting, wrapped in darkness....
Feb 6, 20197 minA Dream Defiled The Betrayal of Ethiopia's Democracy By Micha Odenheimer The Washington Post Sunday, December 18, 2005 The Addis Ababa airport I used to...
Feb 6, 201912 minJerusalem Still Burning The sheer possibilities of the Global South attracted me - as Israel's had eighteen years ago. In Kathmandu last summer, those two loves...
Feb 6, 20196 minThe Zionist Dream Awaits a Peoplehood Visionhttps://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-zionist-dream-awaits-a-peoplehood-vision/ Eleven years ago, I created Tevel b’Tzedek, an Israeli...
Feb 6, 20193 minWe don’t need experts to know about climate change We can learn all we need to know about global warming from subsistence farmers struggling for survival I learned the most about climate...
Feb 6, 201910 minAn Iraqi Letter to W. BooshDespite pervasive anger at the U.S., public opinion in Iraq has crystallized around the conviction that the Americans need to stay until...
Feb 6, 20197 minVictims of a Broken Promisehttp://www1.jafi.org.il/papers/1999/july/jrjuly5.htm (July 5,1999) A year after Israel pledged to rescue them, Quara’s Jews wait. Hungry,...
Feb 6, 20196 minIts About Politics, Money, and Tycoons, Mr. Presidenthttps://blogs.timesofisrael.com/an-open-letter-to-shimon-peres/ Accepting a lavish Bank Hapoalim salary revealed a shocking disconnect...
Feb 6, 201913 minThe Torah of Globalization What guidance can the Jewish tradition, from the Bible onwards, give to us in the age of Neo-Liberal economic globalization? Although...
Jan 17, 201912 minIn Ethiopia, when the shooting got closerIn the Amhara region, the eye of the storm, an Israeli witnesses deadly clashes that threaten to plunge the nation into chaos Link to...
Jan 17, 20197 minWise Guy, Wise ManA mystical figure with a hippie past, Rabbi Zalman Shachter-Shalomi is the moving force behind the Jewish Renewal movement, which blends...
Oct 13, 20095 minFamily Ties https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/13/family-ties/ Mishpacha, Jerusalem In this age of satellite television and the Internet, it’s rare...
Apr 18, 200610 minThe Messiah Code https://www.haaretz.com/1.4901705 For 200 years, a mysterious manuscript dictated by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav to his two closest...
Feb 1, 200615 minThe End of Public Space: Israel's New Shopping Malls http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/Odenheimer-the-end-of-public-space Shopping malls, I've always found, are difficult places to...
Jun 12, 200512 minHolding Fast to Their Faith https://www.haaretz.com/1.4908605 "Dreams are very important," says Chaim Avraham, a deceptively slight 33-year-old immigrant from...
michaodenheimer May 10, 2020 7 min Freedom, climate change and the Pandemic “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” So begins Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s book “The Social Contract.” I’ve been thinking...
Micha Zvi Odenheimer Dec 19, 2019 5 min Language, Prayer, Compassion, Interpretation Happy Chanuka! What follows are some words of Torah that I offered on Saturday night in honor of the 25th anniversary of the passing of...