One of Israel’s chief rabbis was quick to condemn the recent comments of Pope Benedict XVI on Islam, but American Jewish organizations were mostly silent. The Israeli Sephardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, sent a letter written September 17 letter to Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, a leading Sunni Muslim legal scholar in Qatar, in which he criticized…
For decades, an elderly San Francisco woman kept her wartime stint as a Nazi concentration camp guard hidden from her family, including her late husband — a German Jew who’d fled the Holocaust himself. But time and the American government finally caught up with Elfriede Lina Rinkel, 84, who was deported to Germany this month…
With Tennessee voters set to decide in November whether to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage, the issue is creating tension between religious and political values for many women in Nashville’s Jewish community. The struggle played out last week as about 75 individuals, from both Hadassah and the community at large, turned out for…
A member of Yeshiva University’s board of trustees fainted Monday at a groundbreaking ceremony for a building named in honor of her parents. The ceremony was held for The Jacob and Dreizel Glueck Center for Jewish Study, which will be Y.U.’s first new building at the school’s campus in Manhattan’s Washington Heights area since the…
Denial. Pleasure. Certainly neither is a foreign concept to Jews on Yom Kippur, when a seemingly interminable day of fasting segues into an orgy of kugel and smoked salmon. But would a simple piece of challah dipped in honey really taste so transcendental if we hadn’t spent all day mentally salivating for so much as…
Yom Kippur Children’s Machzor Illustrated by Noam Zimmerman Gefen Publishing House, 64 pages, $15.95. Noam Zimmerman may be only 13, but she already has one up on most of us: a published book with her name on it. Her “Yom Kippur Children’s Machzor” is a one-of-a-kind prayer book made by a kid for kids. And…
Don’t tell Rabbi Niles Goldstein, the brash leader of New York’s New Shul and author of the new book “Gonzo Judaism: A Fresh Path for an Ancient Faith” (St. Martin’s Press), that the “High Holidays” are upon us. It’s not the holidays that Goldstein dislikes — it’s the phrase, which he calls “a metaphor for…
Dipping his apple in honey this Rosh Hashanah will have a special meaning for Southern California Iranian Jewish businessman Izak Kharrazi, who marks his 30th year in the unique and challenging bee-removal business. Affectionately known as the “bee man” by his client base, which includes such celebrities as Tom Hanks, Elizabeth Taylor and Charlize Theron,…
Spirituality can be a single-player game, but Judaism is a team sport. While solo prayer, meditation and reflection certainly have a role in our religion, the history of our peeps is all about collective action. “Al tifrosh min hatzibur,” we’re told in Pirkei Avot — don’t separate yourself from the community. Still, being a team…
In the experience of most Jews, at least in the United States, Rosh Hashanah is an occasion of relative joy. It is a time when they put on their best and even new garb, families gather for abundant, festive meals and fellow congregants greet one another with a hearty “Happy New Year!” either in English,…
The print version of the story, “Israeli Rightist Calls for Transfer of Arabs,” gave an incorrect figure regarding the Kach Party. Rabbi Meir Kahane was its only member to be elected to the Knesset.
