A R C H I V E

City Club’s Notes From The Underground lunch series is the start of a great club tradition to share snippets of our reading. 

Since the wars in Ukraine and Gaza have been weighing on me, as if I were carrying a heavy cross, I decided to write about the inevitability of war and the successful navigation of its consequences. My research revealed an enlightening sermon by C.S. Lewis, titled “Learning In War-Time,” delivered at the University Church in Oxford in 1939, just as Britain had been engaged in the war with Nazi Germany. Far be it for me to top Lewis, I decided instead to simply share his thoughts on the matter: 

May we find inner peace, and intellectually grow during these turbulent times…

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Duality and chaos are the nature of the universe. Even as we strive for unity and order, we are often forced to fight on principle and engage in war. From the earliest caveman’s hand-to-hand combat to the modern era of nuclear annihilation, the nature and consequences of warfare have been upended.

Kinetic wars in places like Ukraine and Gaza have now expanded to involve technology, space, economics, currency, trade, research, biology, and artificial intelligence. The chosen arenas of engagement range from undermining an opponent’s economy to releasing a deadly virus, which is more cost-effective than bombing cities.

Another area of warfare is the advent of “lawfare.” Take the current battles involving Donald Trump in New York State and Elon Musk in Delaware courts, cited by way of examples and not because I am a personal fan of either…

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The global Covid pandemic was a black swan event with still-unknown lasting consequences. At the global level, millions have died, trillions of dollars have been added to the national debts, and China has been set back a generation and may be in the throes of a deflationary cycle. Meanwhile, in America, the nature of work has fundamentally changed such that there is roughly a thirty percent national office vacancy, creating a precarious financial condition for the banks that hold their mortgages.

Less clear is the extent of the alarming unfolding food disruptions in our midst, leaving us vulnerable to social unrest, indeed revolution. Just notice how inflation and “shrinkflation” have ravaged the average American family’s household budget, heavily weighted towards housing and food.

While these negative effects show up in America at the consumer financial and health levels, farmers in Europe, for the past few years, have been acting like anarchists by taking to the streets, alongside their cattle and tractors, as they march on their capitals in a rebellious mood that brings to mind a modern-day French Revolution…

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Alexei Navalny, born on June 4, 1976, was murdered this week in an Arctic Russian penal colony at the age of 47. With his passing, a ray of hope has been extinguished.

The long list of influential Russians who have been killed or died after opposing, criticizing, or otherwise crossing Russian President Vladimir Putin just got longer. Generals fall to their deaths from balconies like Autumn leaves, opponents' jets conveniently explode in mid-air due to “mechanical failures,” and political opponents are regularly poisoned or shot dead in the daylight, execution-style.

After the assassination of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, in a plane crash along with his top associates on August 23, 2023, Alexei Navalny was one of the few remaining opposition voices in Russia to give President Vladimir Putin any resistance to his dictatorial rule for life…

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We are often so consumed by doing things that we seldom take the time to think. In our 24/7 digital world, we have evolved from a human being to a human doing.

We live in a world where software trumps hardware, where ideas eclipse material goods. In this world, Apple is worth ~$3 Trillion, an order of magnitude over the value of Exxon, one of the largest natural resource companies in the world. Even though AI is not yet mature, social media dictates what we see and how we think.

To that point, this week, instead of venting, spouting politics, or waxing philosophic, I’ll simply quote a poem dedicated to the power of thought…

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It was bound to happen. I said it would and was called a warmonger. I predicted Russia would invade Ukraine, and so they did. I predicted Iran and Israel would be at war, with Russia backing Iran and America backing Israel, and so we are.

While America might tend to focus more on capitalistic impulses than global expansion, particularly after her failed adventures in Indo-China, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Iran is hell-bent on Jihad, a holy war in the name of Islam. In short, Iran needs and covets war.

Ever since Iran first took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days in 1979, labeling Israel the Little Satan and America the Big Satan, it has been dead set on their respective destruction and downfall. For 44 years, Iran and its proxies have been killing Americans in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Israel. We’ve been drawn into a sucker’s gambit: the more America tries to buy peace by funding Iran and its “Ring of Fire'' proxies, such as Hamas, Houthis, and Hezbollah, the more belligerent Iran and its proxies act. We must make Iran fear America again…

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The very notion of community is paradoxical. On the one hand, almost everyone seems engaged in one, whether it’s to party or attend some grand event. On the other hand, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general, has declared loneliness and isolation to be the No.1 pandemic in America, a phenomenon killing us slowly but surely. 

The answer to this riddle is that community is more of a mindset than a place, which is why many feel lonely even in a crowd. What gives? What is a real community, and why is it so vital to our well-being?

I know of what I speak. As a lone teenage immigrant in a new foreign culture, I experienced long and deep bouts of loneliness and a heart attack to prove it. As a result, I have devoted much time and effort over the decades to build the sort of community I’d be honored to join (apologies to Groucho Marx). 

Here is a quote from Benjamin Franklin to focus our attention on the need for community: “We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”…

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I am acutely aware of the observation by some members that, over the years, City Club has leaned more towards the heady side rather than a place to have fun. Allow me a moment of self-reflection as I share my thoughts on how we plan to address this issue. 

I was raised in an environment where the very notions of fun and happiness were alien. There is no such thing as a fun-loving Jewish Stoic. As such, my idea of fun has been to build things, engage in dialog, and try to make a difference (Tikkun Olam). This has been the force behind the drive to build the club you are a member of today. 

The good news is that the management of City Club has transitioned to my son, Dustin, who was the social director of his fraternity in charge of event planning. Unlike me, Dustin does prioritize the value of having fun, so now, with our having survived the pandemic and this transition of power, Dustin is focused on launching a slew of fun programs like game night, movie night, and Happy Hours Monday through Friday…

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"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." — Lord Acton

Our country is politically divided, with the danger to our Democracy and, ultimately, our freedom so high it has compelled the United States Supreme Court to wade into politics.

Democracy’s inherent risk is the danger of “One man, one vote, one time.” From Putin in Russia to Xi in China, from Erdogan in Turkey to Abbas in the West Bank, more humans live under a strongman having been democratically elected than they live in a true functioning democracy. Like Adolf Hitler, who mastered this strategy in Germany in 1933, Donald Trump now has the potential to implement the same strategy in America later this year. 

On January 6th, 2020, Donald Trump tried to subvert our democratic process by exhorting his followers, however subtly or cunningly, to form a mob to overturn the will of the people. The Supreme Court will have the opportunity to decide whether to lean toward honoring the  sovereignty of the people, thereby risking that a demagogue will use the rules of democracy to become a dictator “on day one only,” or apply the 14th Amendment to label Trump an “insurrectionist.”…

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City Club member Eli Cohen’s parents were married in the Highland Gardens. In 2012, Eli joined our community as a 19-year-old summer intern and proceeded to graduate from McGill University in Canada with a degree in Finance. Instead of dedicating his career to international banking, Eli decided to take on a BHAG.

Since Eli is ultra-athletic by nature and competitive in spirit, he joined the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). After spending six months learning Hebrew, he spent two years in the Israeli army’s Special Forces Unit. Within hours of Israel declaring war on Hamas on October 7th, Eli was on a plane headed back to Israel to fulfill his duties as a reservist. For the past three months, in addition to his service on the front lines of this terrible war, with help from his family and friends, Eli has raised over $60,000 to buy winter clothing and other necessary gear for his troops. 

Before proceeding further, once again I would like to state that all opinions expressed in this forum, including my own, are personal and put forth in accordance with City Club’s philosophy of Securus Locus to invite further honest dialog. That said, please allow me to share my position regarding the current conflict between Israel and Iran-backed Hamas…

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Since its launch in March 2005, City Club has strived to create a safe place for discussion and dialog. Like blind men touching an elephant, we each have our angle on truth but need each other, especially those with differing opinions, to better grasp reality.

The best strategy to create a Securus Locus, or a safe place, is by sharing our vulnerabilities, mistakes, and lessons learned from such experiences. Since I often wax philosophical on topics I am more curious than knowledgeable about, I’ll start by sharing that I made a wrong call last year on the state of the American economy. Given the backdrop of the pandemic, high interest and inflation rates, and the war in Ukraine, I had projected the market could drop by 15%. Instead, the market rose by 24%!

Now, at the risk of being labeled a Stoic, here is my take on the coming year, as I invite differing and opposing opinions so we can gauge better what might lie ahead…

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Harvard’s motto is veritas, Latin for “truth” and “reality.” Yale’s motto is Lux et veritas, meaning “light” and “truth.” The fortunate go to college to study the classics and philosophy in pursuit of truth and to get a grasp on reality. As parents, we do our best to teach our kids our truth but want them to find theirs by attending a college where the pursuit of truth is woven into the institution's fabric.

Today, with few exceptions, most elite universities strive to indoctrinate their students by promoting their institutional truths instead of creating a safe place for young minds to explore and discover theirs.

In May 2020, we launched the Highland Institute for the Advancement of Humanity, founded on the belief none of us has a corner on the truth. The Institute’s underlying principle is that through discussion and dialogue, our diverse community can attain a better grasp of reality.

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The cornerstone of Highland City Club's philosophy is built on the notion that rituals create community, not the other way around. We define community as a group of people engaged in working, socializing, and dining together in a supportive and non-judgmental way.

At the most fundamental level, human rituals, whether they be religious, national, or cultural, are based on food. From the Jewish tradition of the Shabbat meal to the Thanksgiving turkey feast, from the junk food we consume during the Super Bowl to the barbeque dinner preceding the Fourth of July fireworks display, food plays a pivotal role in building community.

Last year, I shared a vision for the future of our community and the important role food plays in it. Our main goals for 2024 include the expansion of our food program, the promotion of more social activities, and an increase in the size of our membership, all aimed at building a more diverse and sustainable community…

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The times are a-changin’. We live in such a crazy world that folks are having a hard time deciding where they stand, whether it happens to be politics, religion, sexuality, or child-rearing. Are you a he, she, they, or them? Do black lives matter, or do all lives matter? Is being anti-Zionist different from being antisemitic? Is Hamas a brutal terrorist organization like ISIS, or is Israel an aggressive white colonizer? Does the notion of good and evil exist, or does everything depend on the “context?”

In 2018, before purchasing Twitter, Elon Musk put a toe into our current political and social battlefield scene by tweeting the above cartoon by Colin Wright. In it, Musk tried to convey that while he is still who he is, the goalposts have been moved, repositioning him from a hero fighting against global warming to a demon in his support for free speech and First Amendment rights.

Once again, our country is dangerously divided, similar to the 1960s, 1850s, or the Civil War. The division could be one of pro-choice vs. pro-life, a law-and-order stance to beef up the police vs. one of defunding them on the basis that victims have rights too. These battles had been playing out on our public streets, corporate boards, the U.S. Congress, and the Supreme Court, but today, the fight is raging in our public universities…

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Throughout history, religion has been the leading cause of war, regardless of whether its underlying causes were economic, social, or thirst for power. Throughout history, the hatred for Jews, antisemitism, or what is now called anti-Zionism, has been the leading indicator of when the next war is coming.

From Philadelphia to Milburn, from Los Angeles and New York to major European capitals, from our Ivy League schools to Gaza, antisemitism is on the rise because, once again, we are experiencing a clash of civilizations, and the easy culprit for this trouble is the Jew, since they killed Christ and control banking, finance, newspapers, culture, and philanthropy. 

At the global level, China, Russia, and Iran are at war with America, Europe, and Israel. Soon, Japan, India, and Australia will be forced to take sides. So far, these are proxy, trade, currency, technology, and space wars.  

Internally, the right wing of the Republican Party is home to violence and depravity exercised by KKK, Proud Boys, Nazis, Oath Keepers, and the like. Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States made one think of the Right as responsible for all this atrocity. Hence, minorities, immigrants, blacks, the disenfranchised, and the Jews have traditionally found safety and hope on the Left, represented by Democrats…

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History measured the power of empires by the size of the land they ruled. The Persian, Roman, and British empires have come and gone to prove that ideology is more powerful than landmass. Using modern lingo, software is more valuable than hardware. The West has spent invaluable blood and treasure to defeat ideologies such as communism, socialism, Nazism and, once again, faces the challenge of radical Islam.

What is happening in the Middle East, playing out in the recent war between Hamas and Israel, is not about land or a two-state solution, but an ideology. The Crusades were a series of religious wars between Christians and Muslims over an ideology rather than simply a fight over Jerusalem, which both sides considered sacred.

While the Jews may be small in number, the Judeo-Christian ideals, like respect for life, individual freedom, and equal dignity for all humans, are the cornerstone of human evolution. Islam – which literally means surrender – values death more than life, requires constant expansion by Jihad, and considers Jews and the ideals they represent as obstacles to be overcome through the use of violence…

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Happy Thanksgiving. I hope everyone has had an opportunity to spend time with family and friends. This year, I spent the week meditating on how fortunate I am to have been able to live in these times of relative peace and prosperity in a world on the verge of tectonic changes. From global warming to wars in Ukraine and Israel, from the rise in antisemitism to the unknown dark powers of artificial intelligence, it sure feels like we are experiencing a Gatsby’s Roaring 20s era in the face of a looming equivalent of the Great Depression and WWII just ahead.

Tradition is the bedrock of every culture and religion. We celebrate America's independence every 4th of July and let freedom ring, whether during the good times or when faced with unprecedented internal and external challenges. And so it is with Thanksgiving that we embrace the attitude of gratitude, even when the specifics might be somewhat elusive. 

This year, I feel blessed to enjoy good health in my 70s, for my loving though non-traditional family, with special thanks to my son Dustin as he helps to carry the load and stays committed to our family’s vision of building an enlightened community, and for the privilege of living in the United States of America. More specifically, I want to thank our employees, members, colleagues, and friends for your dedication to our shared vision, whether that be your hard work or continued moral and financial support, as we further strengthen our City Club community. 

The only tangible strategy I have to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone is to pour my heart and soul into our ongoing efforts to make Highland, both the Club and the Institute, the community of our dreams…

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One needs more than a lifetime to discover Rome, but if one is fortunate enough to have a good guide, the amount one can see and learn in a week is astounding.

City Club member Giulia Bernardini filled that role as she is a native Italian with two master’s degrees in art history and museum studies. Like her dad, who inspired her passion for sharing the city with others, Giulia’s bigger-than-life personality might just as well be the image of a classic Hollywood actress. After many years of teaching art history at the University of Colorado, Giulia now applies her extensive talents to conduct tours of Rome, Paris, Venice, and Naples. Having concluded that my creative batteries were running low, I jumped at the opportunity to join Giulia and seven others for a week-long tour of Rome.

Our deep dive into Rome’s 2600-year recorded history began with a study of archaeology as we encountered massive palazzos built atop churches built on ancient coliseum foundations. With the Tiber River regularly flooding, some of the sidewalks we were standing on were sixty feet above the foundation of the original building…

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It’s a jungle out there. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Kill to eat, or you may wind up as someone’s lunch.

Humans harbor the capacity for unimaginable evil. Read Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. Read Victor Frankel’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Read Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States. To this day, children are born, live, and die on the streets of Kolkata (Calcutta). From Stalin to Mao Tse-tung, from Genghis Khan to Hitler, history is full of people believing "one death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."

Knowing this, how can one stay sane and function effectively amongst such cruelty? How did Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, and Gandhi do it? What’s the best strategy to survive and thrive in this seemingly unjust, bat-crazy world?

One can study history and become paralyzed by the evil we continue to inflict on each other, our planet, and other species. Today, we are amazed and ashamed that 150 years ago, America, the land of the free, the shiny city on the hill, sanctioned slavery. Seven generations from now, our descendants may be equally amazed and ashamed to learn we factory-farmed other sentient beings to eat and that a Chinese gourmand craze was eating the brains of live monkeys…

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Pogrom is a Russian word meaning “to wreak havoc, to demolish violently.” Historically, the term refers to violent attacks by local non-Jewish populations on Jews in the Russian Empire and adjoining countries like Poland and Ukraine.

Although the first such incident labeled a pogrom was the riots in Odessa in 1821, attacks on the Jews go as far back as Egypt’s enslavement of their entire Jewish population, Spain’s deportation of their entire Jewish population, and Germany’s eradication of all Jews as their “Final Solution.”

Before Islam got into the game, Christianity cornered this market with the claim that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, and the accusation that Jews were performing rituals using the blood of Christian children (a charge known as “blood libel”)…

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