Hobbies

I reorder the content of this page once in a while given my current interests.

Blogs

My Judaical blog. The latest posts are shown on this home page. My current interest is the role of Rabbinic Judaism in Judaism in general.
My complexity blog (not enough time to keep it up) – Conceptual thinking, what are the impacts of an increasingly complex world on day to day living, and the role of critical thinking in dealing with complexity.
This site deals with everything else that does not fit, including a memorial page for the ones I knew and lost.

Genealogy

In 1999, I started tracing my ancestry using online records (JRI.org and Jewishgen.org) and traveled to Zdunska Wola, Poland (ZW) with my daughter, where we also met with an old friend, Prof. Daniel Wagner, who led a phenomenal effort to rehabilitate the Jewish Cemetery and Jewish memory in ZW.
I am taking advantage of countless record databases now available online to expand and refine my family tree (on MyHeritage.com)
Lately, I have taken more of an interest in the stories behind the records, how part of my family perished and how part survived and dispersed. In May 2018, I conducted four expansive interviews of family survivors in Belgium and France and eventually plan to turn this into a written narrative (aka book…)

Music

I dont watch much live TV at all anymore, getting my news from the Internet and YouTube. But I listen to a wide variety of music including

Chick Corea and I at Blues Alley in Washingon DC – April 2014.

Jazz: Chick Corea/Gary Burton, Brad Mehldau, Keith Jarrett, Aaron Goldberg, Yaron Herman, Stanley Clarke, Chucho Valdes, Bob James, Alan Pasqua, Roni Ben-Hur, Anat Fort, Marcin Wasilewski,
Fusion: Chick Corea/Return to Forever, Snarky Puppy, Marcus Miller, Marc Lettieri
Rock, light rock and pop: Billy Joel, Jackson Browne, Mark Knofler, Paul Simon, Eva Cassidy, Doobie Brothers, Keb’Mo’, Van Morrison, Marc Cohn, Alison Krauss, John Meyer, Govt’Mule!, movie themes,
Classical: many including Erik Satie, Samuel Barber, Vaughn Williams.

Photography

I used to love taking photographs. Now I feel that everything has pretty much already been photographed except the spontaneous expressions of our family members. Still, here are some older photos that also reflect my love of travel:

Man in Istanbul – 1975

The 50 most interesting pictures on my Flickr page as determined by Flickr, not me.
Best of Belgium, Best of Brazil, Best of China, Best of France, Best of Gabon, Africa
Best of Morocco, Best of Russia, Best animal pictures, My Flickr page

Old Pictures on Facebook, Genealogy Pictures on Facebook
My Round-the-World Blog, The Liege picture blog

Tea

Here I am rolling Assam tea in Zhongming Village, Taiwan.

I would not call myself a tea expert, but I enjoy tea and I have collected teas from all over the World, including oolongs from Taiwan, pu ehrs from China, green teas from Japan, and great teas from India and Bangladesh, Africa, Turkey and others.

Artwork

I have collected contemporary artwork (mainly prints) over the years, including from Sonia Delaunay, Alexander Calder and Ra’anan Levy.