JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Jewish teen from Ethiopia who had been ordered to deposit thousands of dollars in order to participate in the final stages of the International Bible Quiz in Israel to guarantee that he would leave was granted residency status. While the residency status granted to Sintayehu Shafrao, 18, means that he can remain…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Jewish teen from Ethiopia reportedly has deposited thousands of dollars in order to participate in the final stages of the International Bible Quiz in Israel. The deposit is to insure that Sintayehu Shafrao, 18, returns to Gondar after the competition ends next week on Israel’s Independence Day. Shafrao will represent Ethiopians…
With Passover fast approaching, “Exodus” has been on my mind. No, not the biblical story; the 1958 novel by Leon Uris that served as a sort of bible to the generation of American Jews who had survived the Holocaust, as well as their children. My mom used to carry a tattered copy to the beach…
I’m sitting at home watching the news this past week in awe and with gratitude. More than 150 young women, including several world class athletes, have come forward to talk about the unspeakable abuse they endured at the hands of a predator doctor. One by one, they’ve broken through silence — often at a nearly…
In the book of Genesis, Joseph works for an Egyptian master, Potiphar, and has control over all of his master’s worldly goods. He’s handsome and young — and Potiphar’s wife desire’s him. She asks him to sleep with her but he declines. Day after day she persists, and finally, on a day when no one…
According to our tradition, when Isaac and Rebecca met for the first time — in last week’s Torah portion — it was love at first sight. Rebecca, journeying back from her land with Abraham’s servant, sees Isaac from the distance and promptly falls off her camel. Rashi, the medieval French philosopher, says “she sees him…
The Jewish rapport with weed is long and varied, implicit yet ingrained. President Richard Nixon, father of the Drug War, was one of the first to explicitly call it out: “You know, it’s a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish,” said Nixon. “What the Christ is…
The story of the Akedah — the binding of Isaac — seems out of touch with the times. As racism and nativism have shockingly returned to the halls of power, in the United States and abroad, we need to be roused to resistance and moved to vocal protest. As pressures for ideological conformity mount across…
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