Questions of ethnic, religious, nationalistic, and cultural identity plague the central character in Ayad Akhtar’s “Disgraced,” which is currently being staged at Capital Stage.  Mr. Akhtar is no apologist for Islamist terrorism, but his play suggests that assimilation in pursuit of the “American dream” may be more difficult when one’s core identity is fixed to […]

The idea that Islam is a “peaceful religion hijacked by extremists” is a dangerous fantasy.” -Sam Harris In his brilliant attack on religion (“The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason,” W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2004), Sam Harris presents a view of Islam that suggests (if it doesn’t predict) that the […]

As the primary season enters the home stretch, the leading candidates in their respective parties continue to be Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton: he the free-wheeling, politically incorrect billionaire who wants “to make America great again”; she the highly credentialed, much maligned, technocrat who seeks to maintain and build on Obama’s accomplishments as the first […]

My wife and I are contemplating a return visit this summer to Berlin, Germany, where our son has been living for 18 months.  We visited him last year and very much enjoyed the city, the country, and the adjoining countries that we toured with him.  On that visit we drove into Austria and Switzerland and […]