If you can’t go to Jerusalem for Sukkot, try the next best thing: Bring the Holy City to your own backyard. A Kotel-inspired sukkah, created by the company Designer Sukkahs by Oorah, features an exterior evocative of the Western Wall, made with heat- and cold-resistant material and galvanized metal. The sukkah features a window flap…
“It is a joy to live in one’s own house.” —Yerushalami Talmud, Moed Katan, 2.4 Given that the damage unleashed by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent breach of the levees was of biblical proportions, it should come as no surprise that the storm gave all New Orleanians an entree into the Jewish historical experience. Though…
“This is a good year for etrogs,” said Levi Zagelbaum, a wholesaler who is president of the Esrog Headquarters Inc. in New York. Despite the fact that the fruit was picked especially early in the season in Israel, in observance of shmitta (the biblical commandment to let soil lie fallow every seventh year), Zagelbaum has…
Rabbi Dennis Shulman of Demarest is sure hoping so. Shulman, a longtime clinical psychologist who was ordained in 2003, has a pretty incredible biography (he became blind late in childhood) and is hoping to use it against Republican incumbent Scott Garrett in New Jersey’s fifth congressional district. Shulman’s not the only Democrat in the race…
So. I’m in week one of kitchen tshuvah – my attempt to “return to my best self” through some serious reflection and reordering of my kitchen and all it symbolizes: family, overeating/under-eating, connection to the land, caring for others, care of myself, building community… It’s all a bit daunting, especially since I haven’t spent more…
HOPE AND LAUGHTER AT TWO ISRAEL CANCER RESEARCH FUND EVENTS “Judith Leiber is carrying a Kate Spade bag!” joshed Benjamin Brafman, emcee at the recent Israel Cancer Research Fund Women of Action luncheon, at which Leiber — a Holocaust survivor and haute couture designer whose pocketbooks are owned by celebrities and royalty — was honored….
It was just before Rosh Hashanah when poet Dinah Berland, estranged from her son for 11 years, stumbled upon a book of women’s prayers that she believes led to her reconciliation with him. As Berland tells it, in 1998 she had wandered into a Los Angeles store that sells used books, when a slim book…
Jerusalem – In a dramatic reconsideration of a pillar of Israeli society, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced plans to offer Israeli youth a nonmilitary option for serving the country. According to the prime minister’s office, a new Civilian Service Administration will offer draft-age Israelis who are exempt from military service the opportunity to contribute…
Washington – In this city, keffiyehs — the Arab headdresses closely associated with the Palestinian cause — are regular sights at Middle East-related events. But at an event last fall, one keffiyeh in particular drew stares and gasps. The checkered scarf in question was wrapped around the neck of Keith Weissman, the man once recognized…
Casablanca, Morocco – Last Friday’s election here was watched closely around the world as an electoral bellwether for moderate Islam, but the moderate Islamists were not the only candidates to draw attention for their religious views. No fewer than five Moroccan Jews, three of them women, ran in the elections. None of them ended up…
After spending seven years as an undergraduate and law student at Columbia University, Josh Ratner is certainly no stranger to the Manhattan neighborhood of Morningside Heights. But when the 31-year-old former lawyer reported for his first day of school last week — at the Jewish Theological Seminary, just steps away from his alma mater —…
דער מחבר איז אַן אַמעריקאַנער־געבוירענער ייִדיש־אַקטיוויסט, פּאָעט און איבערזעצער אין בערלין.
