JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Read this article in Yiddish Every Passover Seder night at my house, we – as well as many other Jewish families across the country – encounter the same scenario. According to Jewish law, the Seder can’t begin until the start of the new day, which is roughly an hour after sunset. Because Passover always falls…
A plastic curtain separated my father from his neighbor in the geriatric emergency room. The man, who wore a velvet yarmulke and sported a beard, lay on a gurney. His wife talked on the phone in Yiddish. Then she began speaking to me: “We came here last night from a wedding, our grandson.” I said…
(JTA) — These days there are smartphone applications for pretty much anything, from ordering food to finding a date to reporting anti-Semitic incidents. But what about tools for living a religious Jewish life? Well, there are apps for that, too. Whereas in the time before smartphones, observant Jews may have had to ask their rabbis certain…
(JTA) — President-elect Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, attended the Inauguration Day service Friday at St. John’s Episcopal Church, a tradition that goes back to 1933. The live video showed the Trumps shaking hands with the pastor and entering the church, followed immediately by his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner. No big deal,…
Editor’s note: The author asked to use a pseudonym because her Orthodox community does not know about her lack of religious observance. When I met my husband, I still believed in God. I wasn’t as committed in the demonstrations of my belief as he was in his, but it existed, surely. I was raised in…
Religious Jewish teens are far less likely to attempt suicide than their secular Jewish counterparts, a new study finds. The study, led by researchers from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine and Clalit Health Service’s Geha Mental Health Center, and published last week in the journal European Psychology, bolsters previous research that religious faith…
There are many things that make being Orthodox difficult. In fact, if I started a list right now I think I would be busy for hours, compiling all the challenging aspects of following halacha as I understand it. But no matter how frustrating it can be sometimes, no matter how many times a day I…
As the season of tightly packed Jewish holidays wound down for another year — after the whirlwind of family dinners, synagogue services and even volunteer shofar blowing on top of the upheaval of a new school year for our children — my husband and I reflected once again on how hard we try to “have…
