I don't quite get the brouhaha that is going on in the Jewish world about J Street. Some Jews are convinced that this new organization poses a threat to Israel's interests, while others are equally passionate about the need for an organization that will counter AIPAC and critique Israeli policy...

If you want to ruin a Shabbat meal in my neighborhood of Pico-Robertson these days, just say one word: Obama. Within minutes, one of two things is likely to happen. If everyone around the table is anti-Obama, you'll get a grown-up version of a verbal piñata, with people taking turns...

"Sing me your favorite melody, David," Michael Jackson said to me.

I was sitting alone with Michael in one of the many living rooms at his Neverland ranch in the summer of 2000, and we were talking about melodies.

I had come up to see him because we were planning...

Now that you have brought your can-do spirit and sense of optimism to that most intractable of conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians, I thought I'd share a few words of caution.

First, Mr. President, be prepared to fail and to cut your losses. Be open to the...

I'm not sure, but I think I have a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or at least another way of looking at it. It hit me the other day after I broke bread at Pat's Restaurant with some people connected to Americans for Peace Now, a leftist Jewish organization that...

In the advertising business, clients pay us to dream. To dream means not to be too embedded with reality, to be unshackled from any inconvenient fact that might interfere with the dreaming process, to be, like they say in self-help seminars, appropriately unreasonable.

The price you pay for dreaming is...

I've always been annoyed by the term, "peace camp," the moniker commonly used by left-wing, peace-seeking organizations like Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum and, more recently, J Street.

Because those organizations are very noisy about their desire for peace and their abhorrence for anything that smacks of a...

If you're an active member of the Jewish community -- and perhaps even if you're not -- there's almost no way to properly digest the Bernie Madoff scandal. It's like a quadruple shot of cheap vodka that you drink quickly on an empty stomach. You feel disgusted and drunk at...

I was at a Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house in Orange County, sitting next to a woman who couldn't take her eyes off her BlackBerry. The woman wasn't being rude; she was texting back and forth with her friend Peggi Sturm, who was holed up in one of the...

I feel cheated. I've always been told that Judaism is all about the struggle -- the struggle with God, with ourselves, with ideas.

I've been told that Judaism embraces the tension between opposing views; that a key part of being Jewish is the ability to hold onto, even nurture,...

Now that the election season is over, I want to share a personal revelation that I think can help bring Obama voters and McCain voters closer together. But first, a little background.

I've always loved a good conversation, especially with people whose views are different from mine. But this year,...

Before moving to Pico-Robertson, I spent three years in trendy West Hollywood, where I was the lone independent/conservative voice during an early morning schmoozefest at the Urth Caffé on Melrose Avenue. The term "aggressively liberal" doesn't begin to describe the political leanings of my cappuccino compadres.

But the conversations were...