Welcome!

Welcome to the Nate Newsletter! I am excited for you to join me on this journey on my brand new blog. I used to have a blog roughly six years ago and am excited to return to actively managing a blog. At The Nate Newsletter, I will give updates on various things of my interest, such as my daily life, politics, aviation, social justice, and more. I will post frequently and want to use this space to be myself. I am excited to express myself in a brand new way that you will get to see.
Location: Oakland, CA, USA

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My Brother's Bar Mitzvah

Yesterday, December 1, 2018, was the date that my brother celebrated his Bar Mitzvah. I thought I would take some time to reflect on the festivities and provide some description of what was an amazing event. For security reasons, I will not name the synagogue where the ceremony occurred or the venue for the party that followed. While every Bar Mitzvah ceremony occurs on Saturday, the Jewish Shabbat (Sabbath), the festivities actually start the night before. At the synagogue that hosted the ceremony, the person whose Bar Mitzvah is the same week recites a prayer at the Friday night ceremony, called the Kiddish . Typically, a Kiddish ceremony involves lighting candles, uncovering bread (specifically, challah ), and drinking wine from a special cup (since my brother is too young to legally drink, grape juice served as a substitute). For this ceremony, my mother, grandmother, and great-aunt were all on the bema (the holy, often elevated area at the front of the synagogue) with him. Aft...
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My Thoughts on the 2018 California Fires-- Part II

The first time I wrote about the horrific fires in California, there was thick smoke outside my window and the air outside was so unhealthy that I chose to wear a respirator outdoors. The air quality was so bad that when my school was canceled for three days, I went to Santa Barbara to escape the air for a weekend. The air now has returned to normal. The Woolsey Fire near Malibu is nearly 100% contained and the Camp Fire near Chico is 95% contained. But the unhealthy air that covered the Bay Area for days was merely a nuisance. Football games getting canceled, including the Cal vs. Stanford game, a musical that I was supposed to see getting postponed, and all the temporary closings of businesses in San Francisco are annoying, but not dangerous. In Paradise, California, and other nearby towns, 84 people lost their lives and hundreds are still missing. Eighteen thousand structures were destroyed, including 14,000 homes. The destruction is unbearable. My thoughts and prayers go to tho...
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Oakland Schools Need to Improve. Now.

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