‘Joy shatters barriers,” says a well-known Jewish aphorism. It’s a phrase that many Orthodox synagogues will take literally Tuesday evening with the beginning of Simchat Torah, one of the Jewish calendar’s most joyous days. When the yearlong Torah-reading cycle comes to a close, all Orthodox congregations will dance with their Torahs. But some will do…
Each fall, I write a column about Josie’s education. But you can trace my own education from autumn to autumn. In 2002, when Josie was almost 1, I wrote mockingly about neurotic, hypercompetitive parents who actually would engage in insider trading to get their kids into the 92nd Street Y’s preschool. In 2003, when Josie…
It is often said that science is racing far ahead of our ethics. But bending science to try and meet ethical concerns is not the way to catch up. That is exactly what happened recently when two articles appeared in the prestigious British scientific journal Nature, touting “alternative” approaches to finding sources of stem cells…
Hoshanah Rabah, the seventh day of Sukkot (which falls this year on Monday, October 24), is regarded as the day on which the divine decree decided on Yom Kippur is sealed. For many, the day’s significance is translated into culinary terms. For example, it is customary in some quarters to eat stuffed foods such as…
Bucking American and Israeli policy, a group of former senior American and British officials steeped in Middle East affairs have been conducting a dialogue with Hamas and Hezbollah in an attempt to bring the two militant Islamic groups into the democratic fold. The former Western officials have held two meetings in Lebanon in recent months…
‘For as long as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a Jew,” writes film director-writer-producer Norman Jewison in his just-published autobiography, “This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me” (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press). “When I was 6, I started going to the Kenilworth synagogue, in the Beach area of Toronto, with my…
TEL AVIV — Following a wave of violent incidents, political controversies and alarming sociological findings regarding the poverty-plagued immigrant community, Prime Minister Sharon has agreed to head up a campaign to boost public support for Ethiopian Israelis. The campaign, which is being organized by the Jewish Agency for Israel, is set to launch next month….
Jewish anti-war activists are launching a major campaign to get the country’s largest synagogue movement to come out against the Iraq War. The campaign was announced to followers Monday in an e-mail from Rabbi Arthur Waskow, head of the Philadelphia-based Shalom Center. Waskow, a leading Jewish anti-war activist, announced that his organization was attempting to…
LOS ANGELES — A ramshackle brick building in the bohemian Silver Lake neighborhood here still carries the name Jewish Community Center, but it is only because of some desperate local teamwork and a very non-Jewish hero. A year ago, the Silverlake JCC’s property was on the market and ready to go to the highest bidder….
On October 13, the Swedish Academy awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature to Harold Pinter — a writer who, in the words of the official citation, “uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms.” Until that day, the only closed room to which many in the literary world wanted…
NEW ORLEANS — Expectations for the Kol Nidre turnout at New Orleans’s oldest Reform synagogue were so low that synagogue leaders originally planned to hold services in the building’s small chapel. But five minutes after prayers were scheduled to begin, as 300 people overflowed to folding chairs in the hall, it was clear they had…
