The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research has launched a $5.25 million project to digitize a swathe of its library and archive, creating the world’s largest online collection of Eastern European Jewish life prior to the Holocaust. If completed, the Vilna Project will reunite YIVO’s pre-World War II library and archive for the first time in…
It’s not a great week to be a chicken or a goat. That is thanks to a fluke of the Islamic and Hebrew calendars that has set the prescribed time for a Jewish ritual slaughter and a Muslim sacrifice within a single day of each other. This year, the Jewish ritual of Kapparot is performed…
(JTA) — Five months into the war that turned him into a refugee in his own country, Jacob Virin has already attended 20 Jewish weddings — including those of his son and two other relatives — at the $100 million JCC of Dnepropetrovsk. Towering over the skyline of this industrial metropolis, the 22-story Menorah Center…
The LeBron carnival’s coming to Cleveland, and the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team has a front-row seat. In fact, the 2014 Euroleague and Israel Super Basketball League champions will be participating. On Sunday, Tel Aviv will present the inaugural challenge for NBA superstar LeBron James as he returns to his hometown Cavaliers as a free…
On the top shelf of our living room buffet sit some of our once-a-year religious accoutrements: a Passover matzo set, a white tablecloth for the sukkah and a white apron. This is not your typical kitchen apron; it is my vase shirtsl — literally, white apron: a small, square-shaped, hand-embroidered cotton apron made of fine…
For those who observe Yom Kippur and atone for their sins by fasting for roughly 25 hours, not drinking often proves to be the most challenging part. But for 27-year-old Shaina, who is 12 weeks pregnant with her third child, Yom Kippur won’t differ much from other days: “It’s not a nerve-wracking thing for me,…
(JTA) — In a strategic shift, the New Israel Fund is arming itself with a set of sharp political tools and picking a fight. Its target: Israel’s political right. Its weapons: Opposition research, media monitoring, and staking its claims to patriotism and Zionism. If NIF’s dramatic language, outlined in a Sept. 18 release, and its…
As a seventh-grader walking home in Highland Park, Ill., Jonny Cohen would watch school buses pass by and wonder if there might be a way to make them more energy efficient. School buses are an “overlooked form of transportation,” says Jonny Cohen, now 19. “I like efficiency and for things to be efficient, and I…
When the Rockefeller family announced in September that their charitable foundation would sell off all its would sell off fossil fuel assets, the heirs to America’s quintessential oil baron added major heft to a growing divestment campaign. That campaign could stumble in the Jewish community, where the largest family foundation has deep, ongoing ties to…
The Seesaw is a new kind of advice column in which a broad range of columnists will address the real life issues faced by interfaith couples and families. Join the discussion by commenting on this post, sharing it on Facebook or following the Forward on Twitter. And keep the questions coming. You can email your…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. He grew up among the ultra-Orthodox Satmar Jews in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, in a childhood with rules so strict that playing Frisbee at summer camp was considered a radical move. Today he serves as the spiritual leader of a small, relatively young, progressive Orthodox synagogue…
