Pini Dunner
ARTICLES BY: Pini Dunner
The Lesson That Abraham Teaches Us for Today
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Gander was a quiet town of fewer than 10,000 people on the island of Newfoundland, best known, if...
A Lesson from This Week’s Parsha: The Stars You Can See Are Never the End of the Story
In the summer of 1995, Robert Williams, director of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, received two visits from John Bahcall, one of America's...
Here’s a Lesson from Noah’s Ark We Can All Use Today
Finding Noah's Ark has got to be one of the greatest archaeological trophy hunts of all time. And the list of trophy hunters is remarkable...
How a Story From Brazil Highlights This Week’s Torah Portion
On Aug. 24, 2022, an official of Brazil's indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI, walked into a straw hut deep in the Amazon rainforest in the state...
This Is the Reason Sukkot Ends as It Does
There are some forms of ancient pagan worship described by classical rabbinic sources that are so bizarre you could be forgiven for assuming they were...
Does Sukkot Hold a Lesson for Fighting Antisemitism Today?
Jonas Hanway was not a man who was easily embarrassed. He was born in Portsmouth in 1712, and in adult life became a merchant, traveling...
A Lesson to Remember This Yom Kippur
When Barnett Isaacs stepped off the boat at Cape Town in 1873, his entire commercial inventory consisted of 40 boxes of cigars. He was 21,...
This Year, Rosh Hashanah Should Be a Source of Celebration — Not Despair
In 1544, a Flemish instrument-maker named Gerard de Kremer was arrested in Rupelmonde, near Antwerp, and thrown into the castle dungeon on suspicion of heresy....
The Lesson That Parshat Nitzavim Has for Each of Us Today
Victor Lustig was born in 1890 in Arnau, today known as Hostinné, a small town in Bohemia. Later in life, he would introduce himself as...
Parshat Ki Tavo: The Wanderer Was the Aristocrat All Along
In early 1897, 800 of New York's wealthiest citizens received the summons of the season: Bradley and Cornelia Martin were throwing a costume ball at...
What Parshat Ki Teitzei Asks Jewish People to Do Today
At the end of the 19th century, the United States Post Office employed a remarkable woman whose work required detective instinct, linguistic brilliance, an encyclopedic...
Jewish Leaders Must Treat Community Members as Their Brothers and Sisters
Last week, California State Senator Scott Wiener introduced a proposal that is pure San Francisco. He wants the tunnel through Yerba Buena Island, which connects...
During Changing Times, the Torah Must Stay Consistent
The railway is one of the greatest inventions in human history. It conquered distance, accelerated commerce, and made travel safer, cheaper, and more comfortable. Trains and...
Parshat Eikev: Why Moses’ Message Still Matters Today
There is a particular kind of story that never grows old. It is retold in every generation, in every language, and through every medium—because, beneath...
