The Karajan Problem, or Denazifying my Musical Life
I was sitting on my couch some years ago, listening with my eyes closed to Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The stereo was turned up just a bit too loud for the neighbours, I think, but I could feel the low strings and the tympani resonate through my body like a...
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JP Morgan Chase is Stealing My Money, and I Can’t Stop Them
I remember the day that my father brought me up the Bank of Montreal branch at Baie d‘Urfé Plaza...
The Gilded Perfection of our Political Gods
Nuance does not seem possible on the left right now, especially with regard to our political...
Sound, Interrupted: The Boundaries of Rationality in Postwar Rhetorics of Sound
In 1937 John Cage enunciated his credo on the future of music. "Wherever we are, what we hear is...
Confronting Tonality: Or How I learned to Chill Out and (Mostly) Appreciate Sweetness
I came to avant-garde art music fairly early (and fairly easily), through the soundtrack album for...
On It Goes: Horror in the Age of MAGA
There was a time when any one of these things would have sparked a national crisis: The illegal...
Rites of Spring: The Concert Season at the End of the World
Outrage flooded into the aisles of the Théâtre des Champs Elysées on the night of 29 May 1913, and...
Letter to a Zionist Friend
A couple of weeks ago, I had lunch with a friend from work. It’s something that I rarely have time...
Dead in My Tracks
In May, I started writing an essay pushing back against the dominant Maximalist Zionist narrative...
Happy 100th, Dad!
The sky over Camp Wooden Acres in St-Adolphe-d’Howard, Quebec erupted in color and light; the...
Showing My ColOUrs
This is my Canada Day confession: I lost my “us“ about a decade ago, along with my “res“ and my...
Beersick for Home
I’ve been drinking a bit more beer than usual, lately. I blame the hot, humid, New Jersey weather,...
The Beginning of the Beginning
I did not march last weekend. It is not that I don’t support the demonstrations, and I still feel...
Living in Fear
I live in fear. It isn’t an intense terror or that primal fear of imminent destruction. Rather, I...
Radio Silence
I documented the destruction of Gaza for 52 weeks – an entire year – in my Gaza Journal. I began...
Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Totalitarian Realities
By refusing to even countenance the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States from a...
Booking It
"Getting the Hell out of here" is on my mind these days. I live in a deep-blue part of New Jersey,...
Behind the Lines
I could never have imagined that I would find myself "behind the lines." The phrase was always a...
Flag Day
I am not really a flag guy. I don’t like them. They flatten complex ideas, communities, and...
Mourning for Israel, Weeping for Gaza
I have been watching the events in the State of Israel with horror. Hundreds, perhaps a thousand...
Tefilah Zaka: A Meditation on Sin and Atonement
True atonement is difficult because we are not always aware of our sins against others, and from...
This Content Can’t Be Shared in Canada
I had no idea when I woke up this morning that I was going to spend most of my day trying to...
America is the Greatest Country in the World!
My first impression of the United States was… not great. I remember watching scraps of paper...
“Gabba Gabba One of Us:” The Perils of Misplaced Ethnic Pride
I laughed so hard that I passed beer through my nose. The occasion was the first episode of...
My Hammer and Sickle
I have not worn my hammer-and-sickle T-shirt in public for a long time. In fairness, I rarely wear...
Hubris and the Tragedy of Israeli Democracy
The images of Israelis protesting in the streets of Tel Aviv are arresting. They have continued...
A White Nationalist Sword in the Heart of American History
A crowd of 4,000 gathered in the chilly, late-spring rain to dedicate a memorial to America’s war...
I Will Remember: The Music of the Holocaust
At the end Viktor Ullmann's The Emperor of Atlantis, Kaiser Uberall accepts his fate: he will be...
The Sundering of Israel: How Extremist Zionism Threatens Jewish Life
There is a note of tragic foreboding in the twelfth chapter of the first Book of Kings. This is...
Prelude and Fugue: Bach’s Music in the Vaults of Heaven
I remember the night that my father came home from work with a copy of the Academy of Saint Martin...
“Jew-ish:” George Santos and the Rhetoric of Genocide
Amnesia is perhaps the only blessing of the rapid-fire news cycle. These are, after all, dark and...
Buddha in the Garden: Remembering Bob Hogg
Short, fragmented lines, like shards of broken glass in the sun, skipping from one facet to the...
With Grandad on the Banks of the Gatineau
I walked with my maternal grandfather, P.E. Salter, along the banks of the Gatineau River behind...
A Passionate Voice for Peace: Reading Rabbi Aaron Samuel Tamares
Aaron Samuel TamaresA Passionate Pacifist: Essential Writings of Aaron Samuel TamaresBen Yehuda...
Kristallnacht is Coming: A Herald of the Storm
It stopped me dead in my tracks as I was walking down Newark Ave. in Jersey City one morning in...
Atoning for the Sins of History
Malachy Salter was the great mythical ancestor of my mother’s family. We held him up as a kind of...
Remembering the Queen of Canada
I recall a college history professor once saying that Richard Coeur de Lion is remembered as one...
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