JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Like most people, I thought I would be happy to return to normal this summer. I was grateful to be gathering with family to celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday in person. I enjoyed eating in restaurants again and making travel plans instead of sanitizing my groceries. But underneath that initial elation, as I stored my…
In October 2017 — another look at the news, another thrill of horror. In December 2017 — we assessed our grim situation — if they were out there making our movies, running our restaurants — weren’t they in our workplaces? Could they be in our homes? And by 2018, we began to miss them. My…
A video broadcast by New York’s ABC 7 channel shows chickens in cages that have died waiting to be used for kapparot, the ultra-Orthodox practice of swinging a chicken around your head to transfer your sins to it. The broadcaster reporting the video noted that, although the word kapparot means “forgiveness” in Hebrew, “it is…
The week before Yom Kippur, it is customary for Jews to repent in synagogue for their sins. The Forward has received a copy of former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s personalized prayer list. Oh Exalted God, For the sin of Abusing my power, For the sin of Betraying my constituents, For the sin of Cruelty to my…
