(JTA) — The only time I ever attended Israel’s International Bible Quiz, I sat three rows in front of the prime minister. It was 2005, I was a 19-year-old student, and I watched as Ariel Sharon strolled in with his security detail, a large black nylon kippa perched lumpily on his head. The rest of…
For the first time in 30 years, a secular Jewish teen has won the World Bible Quiz, a test given every year on Israel’s Independence Day to Jews ages 14 to 18 from around the world. Sagiv Lugassi, who attends a secular science and technology high school in Maalot in Northern Israel, was the winner…
Trump, Pence, Ryan and the whole GOP are Sodomites. This doesn’t mean that they engage in sodomy, per se. Rather, the Republican leadership today is guilty of sins so grievous that God found necessary to destroy their (im)moral forebears in the Torah. The actual text of the Sodom story in Genesis 18 and 19 doesn’t…
In synagogues around the world on April 1, the annual Torah reading cycle will turn to the book of Leviticus. I am looking forward to it. Few synagogue goers or Bible readers seem to share my enthusiasm. Not that the Bible is usually boring. Over the past few months in synagogues, we read Genesis’s highly…
President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he will be sworn in using both Lincoln’s Bible and his own family Bible, given to him by his mother. The Constitution doesn’t require that a Bible be used at all. The Bible aspect of the inauguration is all about symbolism, not law. Barack Obama chose Lincoln’s Bible for…
(JTA) — Yair Shahak of New York City was one of two winners of the International Adult Bible Contest in Jerusalem. Shahak, 28, representing the U.S., shared the honor with Israeli Yafit Silman, according to Ynet News. Shahak’s wife, Yaelle Frohlich, was also a finalist in the competition, representing Canada. The contest ended on Dec. 28….
Gil and Jenna Lewinsky, a Canadian Jewish farming couple, had a different sort of aliyah in mind when they loaded more than 100 sheep on a cargo plane for Israel, animals they said hail from Biblical times. “You know that Israel is built on Jewish people returning. Now you have a case of an animal…
On the way home from the funeral, we discussed Amalek. It was Purim time, 1996. Israel was living through one of its worst spates of terrorism in years. Two students, Matt Eisenfeld and Sarah Duker, boarded a bus together and were killed, along with 24 other people. Matt was my friend. He and Sara were…
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