Benjamin Rosloff, an aspiring Jewish filmmaker living with autism, was filming a bar mitzvah in Port Washington, NY. But the young boy getting bar mitzvahed didn’t say the prayers or read the Torah with his own voice. He also had autism, and relied on an augmentative speech device to communicate. “I couldn’t tell whether the…
This essay originally appeared in the New York Jewish Week. Friday night. We are standing in a paved plaza beside Riverside Drive; the air is crisp, the fresh snow is sparkling like diamond dust in the setting sun. We are 6 feet apart and masked (I can’t wait for this combined phrase to become obsolete)….
Hebrew etymology is trending on Twitter after Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat, ended his opening prayer to the 117th Congress with the phrase “amen and a-woman.” “May the lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us and give us peace — peace in our families, peace in this land and there I…
Several doctors and nurses reached out to me to ask if I would compose a prayer for them to recite at the moment they received their COVID-19 vaccinations. It didn’t occur to me to write this prayer, but instantly I realized that it is a holy step, a blessing and a miracle of science. We…
For the laughter of the children, For my own life-breath, For the abundance of food on this table, For the ones who prepared this sumptuous feast, For the roof over our heads, The clothes on our backs, For our health, And our wealth of blessings, For this opportunity to celebrate with family and friends, For…
These days, we’re the people of the tweet. Also, the Trump flag repurposed as a prayer shawl. Indeed, Jews on both the right and left have responded to the chaos of Election 2020 much as Jews have for millennia. We cried out in prayer — or at least online. “I pray that I can put…
“I believe in the power of prayer,” Judge Amy Coney Barrett said during her Senate confirmation hearings this week, “and it has been uplifting to hear that so many people are praying for me.” Barrett is a passionate Catholic whose faith has been the subject of much debate since President Trump nominated her to replace…
Gal Gadot enjoys many of the world’s blessings, to be sure — but everyone knows that the most beautiful and wealthiest aren’t always happy. The Israeli actress and model, most known for starring in “Wonder Woman,” most definitely is, however, and she told a Vanity Fair journalist why in a Vanity Fair cover story. It’s…
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