JERUSALEM (JTA) — The attacker who stabbed two Jewish teenagers as they walked to the Western Wall on Shavuot night was a Christian-Israeli. John Kakis, 19, of the Old City of Jerusalem, was arrested in connection with the May 23 stabbing attack that left the teens with moderate injuries, the Shin Bet security service said…
Besides indulging in dairy and abstaining from sleep, Shavuot signifies the offering of the first fruits in the Land of Israel, the receiving of the Torah and the story of Ruth the Moabite. For Iraqi Jews, however, Shavuot also represents a time of personal commemoration of the Farhud, the “violent dispossession” that rocked the ancient…
Some of my readers scolded me via email because I planned to attend a night of Shavuot learning that wasn’t centered around text study. I heard them. But I went anyway. And I hope, for this particular column, we can set aside the debate of whether it’s kosher to include non-Torah-focused discussions on Shavuot –-…
Jews have a long history of U.S military service. Sephardic plantation-owner Francis Salvador became the first Jew to die in the American Revolutionary War when he fell fighting the Loyalists in South Carolina in 1776. Abraham Lincoln appointed Jacob Frankel as the first Jewish chaplain during the Civil War, to serve the growing number of…
To the young women of my generation, the movie “Mean Girls” is a modern day classic. The premise is simple: 16-year-old Cady (played by Lindsay Lohan) is dropped into a public school for her junior year after having been homeschooled in Africa. There, she falls in with the popular crowd, first as an anthropological study,…
Were any Sadducees around today, they’d be happy. The first day of Shavuot falls on a Sunday. There are, however, no Sadducees left. They were one of the camps of Jews during the Second Temple period that rejected the orally transmitted Jewish religious tradition, or Oral Law, which, together with the Written one (the “Five…
I was never great at pulling all-nighters in college. But I’ll be pulling one this weekend on Shavuot. Apparently it’s the thing to do when marking the receiving of the Torah: stay up all night studying it. And celebrating it. So this coming Saturday, May 23, despite the temptation of traditional Memorial Day barbecues, I’ll…
The Book of Ruth is read on Shavuot because, like the holiday, it takes place during the wheat harvest (first barley, then wheat) and because its heroine, Ruth, also accepts the Torah, Shavuot’s historical theme. It is one of the most universally beloved of all Bible stories, a romance that culminates in the unlikely joining…
מאַטי מענדלאָוויצעס ברודער, וואָס האָט יאָרן לאַנג געליטן פֿון דעפּרעסיע, האָט הײַיאָר זיך גענומען דאָס לעבן. .
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