Special for Yom HaAtzmaut: Chaim Strauchler questions an ironically “new” name for the Jewish people – The People of Forever. In tracking the origins of the term, he asks what the phrase communicates about the connection between Zionism and Jews of the Diaspora – past and future.

“You may already be the winner of one million dollars!” In this week’s TRADITION Questions, Chaim Strauchler explains how your ability to determine the spending of 1 billion dollars differs from the old Publisher Clearing House Sweepstakes. He finds meaning in what this odd election for the World Zionist Congress says about the history of Zionism and modern Jewish identity.

With Purim a week away, Chaim Strauchler questions the number of weak-ties in our Jewish communities and what they say about Purims past and future.

In advance of the arrival of the month of Adar (and a week ahead of our reading of Parashat Shekalim), Chaim Strauchler questions what we choose to count in Jewish communal life. How does “modern” Jewish counting bias communal life? Does it cause us to fail to see those who do not fit traditional family models?