On a March morning at Tenwek Hospital, cardiothoracic fellow Dr. Keith Dindi scrolled through an Excel spreadsheet, blocks of green, yellow, and red going by. It was a list of patients waiting for cardiac surgery. Green meant they were waiting for an operation, yellow meant they had had an operation and might need follow-ups, and red meant the patient had died.

As he scrolled, Dindi read off the patients in red. 

A New York moment: 

I had lunch with Eric Brodkowitz, 23, who by day is an analyst at Goldman Sachs and by night is preparing to be a starting pitcher for Israel’s Olympic baseball team. A Jewish New Yorker, he has taken on Israeli citizenship to join the Israeli team and helped lead it over the last year to one of the six spots in the Olympic baseball tournament. 

Remarkable stories these days can quickly disappear into the blast of internet drama or depressing news cycles. That gives even more reason to go back during spring training and revisit one feel-good story of 2019: the Washington Nationals’ improbable championship run.

A New York moment: 

I recently went to a maximum security prison north of the city to interview serial killer David Berkowitz, who now describes himself as a Messianic Jew. At the same time, I happened to be working on a piece on the rise of anti-Semitism, and Berkowitz mentioned after our interview that he has been following that trend as well, and praying for the Jewish community. 

On a December morning, the Shawangunk Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in the Hudson Valley, was covered in a crunchy layer of snow. Guards counted heads first thing, which included that of inmate David Berkowitz, once known as the “Son of Sam,” a serial killer who terrorized New York City for months in 1976 and 1977 when the city initiated the largest manhunt in its history. 

On a Saturday in January, just north of New York City, members of the Lincoln Park Jewish Center had a prayer service followed by lunch. They filled paper plates with egg salad, pasta, gefilte fish, rolls, and fruit, so no one would have to wash dishes on Shabbat, the Sabbath. Nothing unusual in that for a “modern Orthodox” synagogue whose members try to observe Jewish law while still participating in American culture. 

A New York moment: 

While working on an article about rising anti-Semitism in New York, I visited an Orthodox synagogue just north of the city called Lincoln Park Jewish Center. Detectives from the local police station had attended the service the week before to show police support amid fears of violence. The atmosphere this Shabbat was strained but still warm. The congregation sang a song that concluded, “God is with me, I shall not fear.”