ELANA SZTOKMAN

GOEL Ratzon, a 60-year-old man with long white hair and penetrating eyes, has at least 17 wives and 28 children, though the precise figure remains elusive.

Ratzon, who apparently believes himself to be something of a messiah, or the modern embodiment of King Solomon, was arrested earlier this month in Tel Aviv, as were some of the wives, following an eight-month undercover operation that included some daring work of a female detective who presented herself as a willing conquest.
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SEAN BOROKOVSKY

TOO often people either don’t write their goals — and once they do, they don’t achieve them. Does that ring a bell?

Ask yourself, when you were 10 years old, would you have dreamt of being where you are now?

Is this dream coming true or is it a shade less than what you would have wanted? Perhaps it is a world away from any of your dreams and you’re wondering, “How did I get here?”

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ELANA SZTOKMAN

IN Japan, it seems, there are some women-only buses. They were established, according to journalist Chani Luz, to protect women from “groping men.”

Luz, who writes for the Orthodox publications Makor Rishon and Hatzofe, supports women-only buses in Israel because, as she recalled in a recent column, she was once molested on a bus when she was in 12th grade.
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A boy lights the Chanukah candles at Ohel Rachel synagogue in Shanghai. Photo: Peter Kohn

PETER KOHN

IT is Sunday evening, December 13, and I am trying to locate Ohel Rachel, the first synagogue built in Shanghai (in 1920) and, with Ohel Moshe, the only two still standing.

I have heard there is a Chanukah candle lighting. Suffused with syrupy carols in my hotel and in the malls, and oversized Christmas trees, I am convinced the Chinese understand the commercial and diplomatic upsides of Yuletide. But I need my Chanukah fix.

I have the address from a guide book and, exiting from the West Nanjing Road station of the metro, I follow my map to North Shaanxi Road, bordering the treelined former French Concession, where I turn right.

At a building just over West Beijing Road, there is a buzz — a mix of security personnel and officialdom. I’ve found it.
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ELANA SZTOKMAN

WHEN I was an 18-year-old yeshiva high school graduate from Brooklyn, one of the biggest questions on the minds of my female friends and me -— right after, who will get engaged next? -— was, who is going to “frum out” in Israel?

You know, it’s what happens during that post-high school yeshiva experience in Israel: the skirts get longer, the bowing gets deeper during prayers, which also increase in frequency.
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SEAN BOROKOVSKY

ARE you working longer hours, with less time for yourself and your loved ones? Do you want to find the balance but don’t have a clue where to start?

You know that feeling. Where you’re that close to finishing a project, or achieving a goal, or crossing a task off your to-do list but you just can’t muster the energy. You’ve lost interest.
You’re exhausted. Drained. And you don’t know why. That’s burnout!
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RON WEISER

I HAVE just returned from an amazing conference — the Israeli Presidential Conference titled Tomorrow.

If nothing else it underlined that this little country in the Middle East was deemed worthy of the attendance and participation of many Heads of State, world leaders in the financial field, world leaders in technology and innovation and some of the leading philosophers on continuity. Jewish and non-Jewish.

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Sarah and Tim Fife in Italy on the path between Monterosso and Vernazza, Cinque Terre.

SARAH AND TIM FIFE

ITALY. For some, simply the name conjures up images of rolling vineyards and dramatic coastlines. For others, they see endlessly flowing vino and mountains of delicious food.

Others still picture shadowy Mafioso-types in clouds of cigarette smoke. Throw in warehouses of artistic masterpieces, about 28 gallons of gelato, and an occasional forest fire, and you’ve pretty much summed up our experience in this legendary land of romance and history.

We began our time in Italy in Cinque Terre, a set of five little villages dotting Italy’s picturesque northwestern Riviera.

Nestled into the steep hills of the coast, the towns are linked by 9 km of walking trails that zig and zag their way through tiny vineyards, bushlands, or trace the rocky coast.

Each little town is the definition of quaint, with twisting alleyways, just one or two main streets (all car-free), and a healthy sprinkling of cafés and olive oil shops.
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ELANA SZTOKMAN

FORGET Larry Summers, the whole women and math brain thing. This isn’t about men dominating women in math and science.

We’re talking here about writing, language, the place where anti-feminist men are still kvetching that they are discriminated against, that girls in school have an unfair advantage for being “girly” and enjoying books.
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Sarah Fife at the entrance to the old city of Munich

SARAH AND TIM FIFE

WE headed to Munich. Dachau Concentration Camp, the reason for our visit to Munich, on the other hand proved to be an entirely different story.

The first concentration camp to be built by the Nazis, Dachau was, and continues to be, synonymous with the terror and horror of the Holocaust. The very name causes many people to shutter and, having stood in the enormous empty roll-call square where up to 30,000 prisoners once stood to be counted, I can see why.

We spent our first hours at Dachau making our way through yet another information-heavy (though, this time, interesting) exhibition, which gave a history of Dachau in addition to commentary on the war in general.
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