Jewish life is now, officially, Zoom life. The meetings, meals, ceremonies, seminars, concerts, debates, panels and classes that defined Jewish life have, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, migrated to Zoom and other teleconference apps (but mostly to Zoom). Unfortunately, too many of us aren’t quite ready for prime time. What’s the right camera angle? What…
New York City has handed out nearly 32,000 kosher meals since last Wednesday, but it underestimated the number of meals needed and encountered problems distributing them, including shortages in some locations, surpluses in others and several long lines. Politicians representing Jewish areas who fought for kosher meals to be added to the city’s free-meal program,…
(JTA) — As a young clarinetist, Paul Shelden performed under the direction of famed conductors Leonard Bernstein and James Levine. Later he would lend his talents to the work of Bob Hope, Tony Bennett, and the jazz-rock band Blood, Sweat and Tears. And as an academic, he spent more than three decades on the faculty…
(JTA) — There was something unmistakably old-world about Ernest Einzig — or Zeide Ernie as everyone called him. With his mustache, trademark suspenders and thick Hungarian accent, he seemed to come from another time. Einzig was born in 1923 in Budapest, where he apprenticed as a tailor before fleeing rising anti-Semitism for America. He was…
Coronavirus has changed everything about life in Asia, including the lives of the Jews who live there. Case in point: for the first time, separate Jewish communities in China, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, and Singapore are coming together to co-host digital events. One of them, the upcoming Asian Limmud conference to be held online May 3-4,…
The Jews of Alaska call themselves “The Frozen Chosen.” There are only a few thousand of them – people are likely more familiar with fictional depictions of Alaska Jewish life in “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union” or “Northern Exposure.” But in the real world, one community member is about to get a much higher profile: Dr….
In a moving virtual ceremony last Sunday, Dr. Howard Kaye spoke of his late wife of 34 years, Lori Gilbert-Kaye. It has been one year since a gunman shot and killed Gilbert-Kaye inside Chabad of Poway, and the memorial service to mark the event was a virtual one. “Lori took every mitzvah and every kindness…
It’s a brutally cold Saturday morning in February, and Dearborn resident Chris Mark is one of only two people from a group called Witness for Peace standing outside Ann Arbor’s Beth Israel Congregation. The group used to be bigger, but Mark said many members have passed away over the years, and it’s hard to bring…
According to Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, the lockdown of her city due to coronavirus is “insanity.” To Her Honor, then, sanity is defined as completely reopening a city that depends on strangers from random cities gambling, dining and watching entertainment in close proximity, while in the throes of the deadliest and most contagious worldwide…
Lakewood, N.J., is a famously devout and rapidly growing town centered around the biggest yeshiva outside Israel — Beth Medrash Govoha. Its citizens devote their lives to fulfilling the Torah’s dictates, including the one many consider to be the first: be fruitful and multiply. When the onset of New Jersey’s strict social-distancing rules meant to…
At least 100 people gathered Friday outside of the the Chabad Lubavitch’s headquarters in Brooklyn to pay their respects to a rabbi who passed away earlier in the day. Rabbi Aharon Yaacov Schwei, 86, was a prominent figure in the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Jewish community and held many top roles within the Chabad organization. Despite…
