Gary Wexler

Opinion: Israelis can go home again — With a better ad campaign

Published on December 14, 2011

The ads calling for Israelis to return home, recently produced by the Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and subsequently killed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are being criticized for all the wrong reasons.

What's really wrong with Israel's ad campaign

Published on December 7, 2011

The ads calling for Israelis to return home recently produced by the Israeli Ministry of Absorption and subsequently killed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are being criticized for all the wrong reasons.

Getting to know my dad, again

Published on June 14, 2011

My 93-year-old father emerged as a different person when my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s five years ago. He became independent, assertive, interested and engaging. When my mother died in October, he even became a bit spiritual. He’s certainly not the exhausted father with whom I grew up, who often didn’t know what to say to me. As a teenager and young adult, I never thought we would have much of a relationship. But now, as I approach 60 and he nears 94, the engagement between us has blossomed, as it has with my brother and all our children. The relationship he now has with my wife has become his most significant. She handles his money.

Dancing on edge of memories in former café space

Published on March 30, 2011

There is a tiny two-block alleyway in West Los Angeles that runs on a diagonal from South Barrington Avenue east to Pico Boulevard. The backs of small industrial buildings border one side. On the other, a chain link fence shields a packinghouse or shipping service. To look at it, you would never call it the street of dreams or the isle of atmospheric romantic intrigue. You certainly would never envision it as the pulsating focus of a once-young, vibrant new generation of American Jews animated by the lightning victory of Israeli soldiers during the Six-Day War.

Jews of the world, collaborate!

Published on October 13, 2010

Can Alzheimer’s research set the tone for the future of the Jewish community?

A Response: From Sarna’s Lessons, 5 Actions

Published on March 4, 2009

Kol hakavod, as they say in Hebrew for congratulations, to professor Jonathan Sarna for his piece on the steps the American Jewish community must take in an economic downturn. His is a respected voice that hopefully our communal leadership will listen to.

What we need: Philanthropreneurship

Published on March 1, 2007

I'm learning that to American eyes, Canada can be very deceptive. It looks and smells like America, but scratch the surface and our northern neighbor is a million miles away. It's a very different place and culture.

I rode on the wild side—when road rage met anti-Semitism

Published on January 11, 2007

On the way to Los Angeles International Airport this afternoon, I thought I was about to be murdered.

Labeling ourselves as ‘right’ or ‘left’ limits us

Published on September 14, 2006

While Israelis are furious with their government and military leaders over a war that was badly fought, very few believe that the effort was unjust. From their recent writings and in discussions with influential Israeli opinion makers, I was exposed to a variety of thinking.

Left-Leaning Jewish Groups Out-of-Touch Now

Published on August 4, 2006

It is time that we American Jewish liberals who have been left leaning about our politics regarding Israel begin to review the support we give to the organizations that have been leading us. They are proving themselves obsolete, outdated and out-of-touch.

Face It:  Judaism Is Not Hip

Published on September 29, 2005

I was an advertising agency copywriter and creative director. I was trained to be one of the manufacturers of hip. I would sit in offices and create hip, and then watch all those people lust after the creations. I reveled in hip.

Failed Joshua Venture’s Serious Failings

Published on April 14, 2005

Now that it has been "formally put to death and buried," as one of its grantees told me, I feel free to speak out about the Joshua Venture, a supposed breakthrough organization, subsidizing the ideas of nonprofit professionals who will be leading the next generation of Jewish life.

Here’s a Great Idea for a Change

Published on December 9, 2004

Jews know well how to create an idea and implement it. In the world at large, we do it all the time in the arts, business, government or academia.

Visit to Another Israel

Published on February 5, 2004

It's time we stop kidding ourselves that Israel has survived well through the last three years. The country is unraveling at the seams.

When Jewish Is Too Jewish

Published on May 8, 2003

I was in Washington, D.C., this week and had a meeting with a senior officer of the World Bank, who is from Bombay. As we ate our dinner, the conversation turned to ethnicity.

A Plea to Lower the Bar on Bar Mitzvahs

Published on January 9, 2003

Now that our youngest is a freshman in college, and most of our friends' kids are well-beyond bar and bat mitzvah age, I feel liberated to speak out: our bar mitzvah culture is out of control. It is an unnecessary, extravagant, showy, inappropriate expenditure, which is done under peer expectation and pressure. It is an embarrassment to the Jewish people.

What does this bar mitzvah overkill say about us? What are our children learning from the bar and bat mitzvah experience? What are they ingesting about the values of Judaism and the Jewish people?

Professional-Lay Relations Need Examining

Published on October 17, 2002

When people query me as to who our clients are, if the person is Jewish, I often answer, "Half our clients are Jewish organizations. And the other half are people who treat us really nicely."

Defining Arab Issues in Israel

Published on March 29, 2001

This has been my third trip to Israel in the last several months on behalf of the Ford Foundation, gathering information for the building of a marketing institute which will service grantees in Israel, mainly Jewish organizations.

A Lesson in Friendship

Published on November 23, 2000

Now I understood why Reuven was able to bring me into the neighborhood, into his home, into his shul, invite people to meet me, and then into his yeshiva. No one would question the actions of an ilui. I further understood his ability to teach me, to move so adroitly into the issues of my world and professional endeavors while we were in London.

My relationship with Reuven has continued to grow through further visits, meals with my wife and his wife, and through study. He has brought me as his study partner into all the great yeshivas of Jerusalem. He wants me to see them all.