I was 5 years old when I realized that I was a freak show. In Macon, Ga., good ole boys go huntin’, muddin’ and beer guzzlin’. Peroxide blondes drive pick-up trucks with gun racks. Prayer kicks off sporting events. A Jewish girl is like a werewolf-midget contortionist. My mother always dreamed I’d be married in…
Two influential Orthodox organizations, Agudath Israel and Torah Umesorah – The National Society for Hebrew Day Schools, have come out against a New York State bill that would create a one-year window in which child sex abuse victims could sue their molesters, no matter how long ago the abuse happened. The bill has been a…
Listen to a podcast featuring Andy Stern speaking about his Jewish and labor roots:
Now that Pesach has come and gone and we are back into the swing of eating leavened things again I though I would share a great spring recipe with you. I think I’ve mentioned before that my dad has always been the cook in my family – and fortunately he’s very talented at it. One…
HEAVENLY ACCOLADE AT BROADWAY OPENING OF FELDSHUH IN ‘IRENA’S VOW’ Those present at the March 29 Broadway opening night of Dan Gordon’s “Irena’s Vow,” starring Tovah Feldshuh, will always remember the thunderclap that shook the Walter Kerr Theatre. During the post-performance question-and-answer session with Janina Opdyke Smith, daughter of Irena Gut Opdyke, whose heroism fuels…
Complaints over Israel’s conduct on Palestinian land are well-known. Less commonly heard, however, is the accusation that Israel is actually removing the land. “How is it that they are taking our land to Israel?” asked Ibrahim Abder, a Palestinian man standing at a stone quarry near his home a few miles south of Bethlehem during…
After five years of rabbinical school, Benjamin Berger was looking forward to leading the life of a pulpit rabbi: getting to know his congregation, sharing his love of the Torah and leading a community. But when he started searching for jobs in his fifth year at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, a Modern Orthodox seminary…
The traditional Jewish blessings over wine and bread, the Kiddush and the Motzi, echoed through the sanctuary at 10 HaRav Kook Street in Jerusalem. It was a room of striking simplicity — with just one small cross in brown wood. Four Catholic priests wearing white robes and green stoles stood at the altar, as one…
Aside from a few buckets to catch water where the roof leaks, Congregation B’nai Jacob in Jersey City, N.J., looks much as it did 40 years ago, when 900 people would show up for High Holy Day services and the Hebrew school was packed with 175 students. But the Hebrew school has been closed for…
Two years ago, an MBA student whom I mentored wrote her thesis on how major Holocaust organizations were planning to deal with the inevitable — the fact that soon, all too soon, there would be no survivors. Her conclusion was sobering. The leadership of every institution acknowledged the problem and dreaded that moment. What were…
When Denise Eger assumes the leadership of this region’s local rabbinic association, she’ll be making history — twice over. On May 11, Eger will become not only the first woman to lead the Board of Rabbis of Southern California — one of the nation’s largest rabbinic boards — but also the board’s first openly gay…
