Israel Reflections 2019: Let’s Do This!

Hi blogosphere–it is my pleasure to start us off with blogging about this year’s spring break trip. We had 40, yes 40!, law students on this trip with four faculty. And it was a great group.

Per usual, we started off on Friday night with a lookout over Jerusalem where we all celebrated our safe and easy arrival.

View overlooking the City of Jerusalum with homes and low buildings in the distance and a large golden domed building. Then we visited the Western Wall to see the prayers at Shabbat. This can be both beautiful and unsettling, as men and women are separated. And, as we had arrived on International Women’s Day, the difference was even more notable.

As student Madison Mears noted, “The [smaller] women’s side was crowded and silent; the only noise filling the women’s area came from the prayers, songs, and chants of the men from the other side of the fence…To experience that dichotomy of expression and repression, left me walking away with more questions…” This impact of religion and gender continued to be a theme throughout the week as was the fact that we often left with more questions than when we came.

The Israeli flag flies in a courtyard outside of a brick building. Student Micaela Bear also noted how the separation of the sexes led to questions by her classmates but also wrote, “As a Jewish student at a Jesuit law school, it was hard to fathom that my cohorts of different religions would feel such a special connection to a Jewish holy site. It filled my hear with warmth to experience the start of Shabbos with Jews of all denominations, but also to share this experience with my classmates.”

I felt the same way–what a privilege to be able to share a place I love with a new group of students!

Cross-posted at Indisputably.org

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Heartbroken in Pittsburgh

I thought that teaching the Kavanaugh hearings in a careful and respectful manner a few weeks ago would be the biggest teaching challenge of the semester. I was wrong. This weekend, as you have all no doubt heard, a gunman with a history of anti-Semitic rants and far too many legally acquired guns in his possession, entered a synagogue and killed 11 people there in the middle of Saturday morning prayers.

Tree of Life is a synagogue in the heart of the Squirrel Hill neighborhood in Pittsburgh. This is my home. I went to Hebrew School at Tree of Life, my mom was a teacher there—it is one of several synagogues in this neighborhood that we have belonged to over the years and those killed are parents, cousins, dear friends of our community—two learning-disabled men, leaders of the synagogue, the list is too painful.

As the newspapers have noted, Squirrel Hill has been a Jewish enclave in Pittsburgh for years but that also misses the point of its diversity. 

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Law Firm Ads and Other Fun

For my ethics class, I have students works through the applicable rules by creating advertisements for their law firms.   As a little break from finals (and grading them), here are the top ones in various formats–worth watching them all!

For cutest actors and great point on collaborative divorce:

For best take off on Breaking Bad 

For best tag line about clients:  LGLcommercial – Medium

For all around best in show and a good bit of magic!

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