Essays

Two Winding Paths to the Promised Land
A Jewish reflection on anti-Black Racism.

Nesting Instincts 
A picture book becomes a final farewell to a dying friend.

Illustration by Irene Luxbacher.
Illustration by Irene Luxbacher.

Reading My Father
In the absence of conversation, a son turns to his father’s books for insights.

Books That Speak To Us
The simple and sublime pleasure of audio books.

Oh The Places He’s Gone
Confined to a wheelchair, a computer screen became his canvas.

In Good Company
Reflections on a beautiful film fuelled by unscripted truths.

Words That Wound
Thoughts on a word that wounds with its casualness.

Dish By Dish
The mundane becomes meaningful as a son absorbs his mother’s history.

Singing A Song Of Defiance
The story of two remarkable women whose braided lives are worth trumpeting.

Benjamin Linder: The Memory Of Justice
He was an engineer with a vision who found himself in the cross-hairs of a myopic U.S. foreign policy.

The Scent Of Almond Oil
Is there a memory more fragrant than the birth of a child?

Quilted Love
To sew is to grieve. To grieve is to heal. The AIDS quilt is a quiet reminder of the need to remember.

Johnny’s Gun
Although written before the Second World War, Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun speaks to the madness of war.

Family Portraits
A painter. His nephew. His nephew’s son. A love of the arts spans three generations.

Group Of Seven
What happens when seven middle-aged men reunite for a weekend canoe trip?


High Holiday Sermons

Three talks given during the Jewish holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, delivered at services held by the Danforth Jewish Circle in Toronto.


Letter From Montana
A small slice of Big Sky country.

Letter From Morin Heights
A rural town where cross-country ski trails and simplicity intersect.

Letter From Central Park
A stroll through Manhattan’s grass-covered heart.

Letter From Ellis Island
A glimpse at the countless immigrants whose arrival at the turn of the 20th century changed the course of North America.

Letter From Florida
Deep in the Everglades, an alligator’s grin can’t mask an ecosystem in peril.

The Kids Will Be Alright
Long, packed days in a child’s life leave little time for childhood.

Unveiling
An acclaimed novel, an architectural triumph: literature and lost lives intersect when a suicide barrier is added to a bridge.