Welcome to the Forward‘s coverage of Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
Welcome to the Forward‘s coverage of Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
Welcome to the Forward‘s coverage of Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
Welcome to the Forward‘s coverage of Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.
Every Friday before sundown, in countless observant Jewish homes across the United States, someone turns on a hot plate or a gas stovetop, and then doesn’t turn it off again for twenty-five hours. The practice is so common that it blends into the background of traditionally observant Jewish life. But since a malfunctioning Sabbath hot…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a condolence letter to the father who lost seven of his children in a house fire in Brooklyn. The children, ages 5 to 16, were buried in Jerusalem on Monday. “Each one of your children was a world unto him or herself, unique and special. There is no greater…
It seems some readers saw my Saturday night post about the deadly Brooklyn fire that killed seven children and decided it was a bigoted attack on Orthodox Judaism. In case you missed it, I wrote that this is not the first time Sabbath fires — hotplates, candlesticks — have gotten out of control and killed…
An Orthodox man looks at the scene of the fire in Midwood, Brooklyn / Getty Images You never want Shabbat to end on a tragic note. Yet among the the rush of messages that blipped across my phone when I turned it on Saturday night was news of the death of seven children in Brooklyn’s…
I’m failing at Shabbat, the most important holiday of them all. It’s not that I’m skipping it; for the past eight years, I’ve gone to services most Friday nights and many Saturday mornings. I buy a challah every week. Light candles. Recite Kiddush. I do feel some Shabbat separation — the literal translation of the…
At the end of a winding road through a cul-de-sac in Columbus, Ohio, lived my maternal grandparents, Lillian and Marty. They were always there when we pulled up, smiling through the screened door. My grandmother was always cooking. I don’t think I ever saw her without her apron on. I remember her mostly from behind;…
Illustration by Kurt Hoffman It was on a trip to Madrid, about four years ago, that I finally understood the paradox of opposites: that there’s no such thing as opposites, really, and that what you get when you try to run as hard as you can in the opposite direction to your upbringing is, well,…
lior zaltzman Ever since publication of my Dec. 23 story on the decision by United Synagogue Youth to relax its rules barring teenage USY board members from dating non-Jews (“USY drops ban on interdating”), JTA has found itself at the center of a firestorm about coverage of the Conservative youth movement’s decision. Rabbi Julie Schonfeld,…
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