Shiva
The Latest
-
Opinion Watching Porn While Sitting Shiva
Digital Spy It was my first shiva call, and it shocked me out of my wits. Sarah, one of the residents in the Jewish retirement community where I’d been conducting seminars on world news, had passed away. A cheerful lady in her 90s, she had always brought an international aspect to our weekly discussions. I…
-
News Shiva Shifts Toward Shorter and Livelier Jewish Mourning for Dead
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. As many an American rabbi will tell you, even Jews who rarely go to Sabbath or holiday services will often contact a local synagogue after losing a loved one, requesting help to arrange the shiva, the week-long mourning period, so that he or she can say kaddish,…
-
Opinion Wrestling With Details of Noah Pozner’s Killing
This post originally appeared on the web site of the Dart Society, an independent association of journalists who cover violence and tragedy. Nine days after Veronique Pozner’s son, Noah, was killed in the Newtown schools shootings, I interviewed her and other members of the family about their grieving process. The family had just finished observing…
-
News Noah Pozner’s Family Remembers and Mourns
Six days after the funeral of six-year-old Noah Pozner, his family is taking stock of the gifts sent to them by strangers all over the world. There’s a stiff teddy bear in a brown overcoat and hat accompanied by a note from a woman who says the bear gave her great comfort when her mother…
-
Culture The Mourning Kittel: When Grief Consumes All
In Genesis, when Jacob sees Joseph’s coat covered in blood, and thinks that his precious son is dead, he tears his clothes and begins to mourn. The act of tearing, keriah, is encoded in Jewish law as part of the ritual of mourning —whether expressing personal grief for a loved one or a national grief…
-
The Schmooze Ringling Heiress Sues Brother After Assault at Shiva
When it comes to the Jewish family behind Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey, the real circus is taking place outside the big top. In a lawsuit that involves a rabbi, secret gay lovers and an alleged assault at a shiva, Ringling heiress Karen Feld is suing her brother, Kenneth, for $110 million, claiming she…
-
Food From Hard Boiled Eggs To Indian Buffets: The Foods Of Indian Shivas
At tables of food lining a neighborhood courtyard, a steady stream of visitors helped themselves to an al fresco meal. But the presence of several people on low chairs, eating from plates on their laps, suggested this was no festive occasion. Indeed, this was a public feast customary among Indian Jews sitting shiva, the seven-day…
-
Life Shiva in Phnom Penh
On a recent Friday afternoon, here in Phnom Penh, my husband, Jeremy, and I went to visit the family of one of his former employees, Mak Lavin. Jeremy started an NGO called Digital Divide Data (DDD) that is based here, so, as I wrote in my last dispatch, we and our two young children are…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News A pioneering Reform synagogue makes way for a booming Iranian Jewish community
- 2
News Hampshire College closure reverberates for alumni who treasured a Yiddishist hub
- 3
Opinion Who’s responsible for deadly antisemitism? Everyone will hate the answer
- 4
Opinion Epstein and Iran are an antisemitism mega-crisis. Here’s what Jewish organizations should do about it.
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward The ‘godfather of denim’ was an Italian designer whose Jewish father was murdered at Auschwitz
-
Theater In a forgotten 20th century masterwork, a Holocaust story from the perpetrator’s perspective
-
Fast Forward Flyers for ‘IsraelFest’ at New York high school ended up in a urinal. Now the school board president is facing calls to resign.
-
Fast Forward Steeped in history, Pensacola Jews celebrate the 150th anniversary of Florida’s oldest synagogue
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
