There is war, and then there is madness. In war, one has to fight, but when madness sets in, sometimes one has to run. Such was the question on a dark October afternoon in 1973, when the quiet … more

When Steve Jobs was 17 he saw a quote: “If you live each day as though it were your last, some day you will most certainly be right.” Delivering a now famous commencement address at … more

Eternity. What does it mean? Does anything really last forever? Many years ago, in the pre-dawn darkness on an empty Jerusalem road, I discovered just how fleeting life can be. After a very late … more

Binny Freedman served in Lebanon in the early 1980s. I remember that ride, passing Agam Karun (Karun reservoir) and then the road below the Beaufort fortress, imagining what that would have been … more

This column was published on Oct. 21, 2015. These past weeks Israel seems to be in the grip of a wave of terror: stabbings, shootings, firebombs, and riots, leaving us wondering whether there is … more

He looked like a teenager, until he began to tell his story, and then his face took on a sadness that aged him. Avi (not his real name) had only recently finished his regular army stint in the … more

Yom Kippur was over, and with Sukkot around the corner, I realized I had no way to get a set of four species in time for the festival. We were stationed in Lebanon, and the thought of having no … more

If you would have collected a group of world-renowned military strategists on Yom Kippur in 1973 and asked them, at 4 pm Israel time, for a prognosis on the status of the events unfolding on the … more

More than what he was saying, it was his face that caught my attention. Flicking on the television absent-mindedly as I was getting dressed for a wedding, I came across the middle of a program with a … more

I hadn’t planned on stopping to watch, but something about him caught my attention. It was Tisha B’Av, the anniversary of the day our Temples were destroyed, the city of Jerusalem … more