A R C H I V E

I immigrated to the United States in 1969 at the age of seventeen, having no family, language skills, or cultural familiarity. I considered America a land of opportunity and a proven melting pot that had, for generations, received and culturally integrated many immigrants like me.

Once I found my cultural sea legs and took a closer look at the American culture, I started noticing deep divisions, played out with the assassination of political and civic leaders, race riots, global wars, economic turmoils, and internal instability, all of which led me to believe that America was concurrently a melting pot and a seething cauldron with a tendency to boil over in response to heated circumstances.

The upcoming Presidential elections, for example, illuminate some of our moral failings, such as our inability to distinguish good from evil as we abandon allies like Ukraine and Israel. The House, Senate, and Supreme Court are not operating in a manner envisioned by our founding fathers.

It is important to distinguish the 1960s student riots directed at a losing war in Vietnam from the antisemitic students in elite universities like Harvard, Columbia, and Yale rioting in favor of Hammas and Iran, shouting “From the river to the sea” and “Death to America.”…

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I take inspiration on how to build a community from many sources, and who better than Benjamin Franklin? In 1727, Franklin and a group of friends founded the Junto Club, also known as the Leather Apron Club, referencing their Masonic background. In 1743, this club morphed into the American Philosophical Society, which still exists today.

While I am no Franklin and our community does not have a stellar 280-year uninterrupted history, City Club strives to emulate Franklin’s focus on exercising the mind on subjects such as the advancement of science and human evolution. However, we endeavor to balance this task with emphasizing fun and play, delicious food, and exotic drinks. As they say, all work and no play makes for a dull life, not to mention the man. Hence, as promised, here comes the fun on which we shall spare no effort or expense.

Forty-five years after Highland’s renovation and nineteen years after its humble beginning in its dark basement, City Club now has ~300 of the coolest, smartest, and most caring members. Looking back, we see the Great Recession of 2008 and the recent Pandemic as having been nature’s way of pruning our membership to strengthen our roots…

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Constantly learning, growing, and leading a meaningful life is an arduous task. Every religion and culture offers a vehicle for achieving this goal. 

The Indian Chakra system, the Kabbalah, and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs all outline the seven layers we must traverse to conquer the reflexes of our reptilian brain, open our hearts to feed our mammalian brain, and achieve the full potential of our Neocortex.

David Brooks’s The Second Mountain: A Quest for a Moral Life suggests that we climb the first mountain in an effort to please our parents, teachers, coaches, and society in general. When this image of ourselves fails to bring us happiness, our fragile ego is shattered, allowing us to climb the second mountain in our own image.

Two millennia ago, Rabbi Hillel said, “If I am not for myself, who is for me? If I am only for myself, who am I?” We can’t climb the second mountain until we have climbed the first. Given the notion that we can’t care for others unless we first care for ourselves, how do we make that switch?…

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After seventy-five years of peace and prosperity, mainly thanks to America’s political leadership, military strength, and economic wealth, the world is once again on the brink of war due to America’s political weakness.

Putin’s reelection as Russia’s President for life, the failure of the U.S. Congress to provide financial support to Ukraine and Israel, Israel’s multi-front war with Iran, which is on the verge of explosion, and President Xi of China dictating terms to President Biden regarding Taiwan entitle us to ask – What in the world is going on?!

We might also take note that this week, gold broke through the $2300 ceiling, Bitcoin traded over $70,000, and the Chinese have apparently chosen to load up on gold over holding US Treasures, all of which begs the question of what exactly is going on with the U.S. Dollar?…

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The negative consequences of the pandemic are still working their way throughout society, and our City Club community has not been spared. This may have particularly affected the fun factor of our club, forcing us to lean more toward intellectual pursuits. 

It is with great pleasure, then, to report that City Club’s 19th-anniversary party last Friday night was a fabulous engagement on all fronts. We hosted approximately eighty attendees, including members, spouses, and guests, who partook in great food and exotic drinks, with member Jeremy Ciampa’s saloon Jazz band setting the mood. It was a joyous occasion appreciated by all, whether it was a smiling Nineteen-year-old Lauren Gould soaking it all up or our own 95-year-old legendary Oak Thorne banging out tunes on the piano during band breaks.

They say a man can live a month without food and a week without water but not a day without hope. Let us honor Spring as we celebrate hope, whether that be in the form of more light, new life, the Persian New Year, Easter, or the potential for one’s destiny to morph from anguish to rejoicing, from hardship to comfort, from war to peace as taught in the story of Esther as we celebrate Purim this year…

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As we approach a new Spring season and City Club’s 19th anniversary, I have been reflecting on the club’s humble start in a dark corner of Highland’s basement and the progress we have made, evidenced by its expansion into the entire building. 

After spending years and millions of dollars in renovation and overcoming many obstacles, such as The Great Recession of 2008 and the pandemic, we still faced two challenges: an aging membership, thus our search for younger prospects, and my own aging, underlying the need for a succession plan. 

I am so pleased with our membership of about three hundred, more young than old, going a long way to satisfying my long-standing hope to establish a community of passionate and caring people within a beautiful and nurturing home. My son Dustin is now fully in charge of operations, and our community, like a multi-faceted jewel, is positioned to do big things and make a small dent in the universe. For example:

The launch of the Highland Institute for the Advancement of Humanity in 2020 has blossomed by taking on many worthy local and national problems, including a key leadership position to help the City of Boulder design and develop a world-renowned Cultural and Performing Arts Center…

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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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