JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
No one likes to be in pain. But what if we stopped resisting it? Just for one day? Tisha B’Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, begins Saturday evening. For 25 hours, observant Jews fast and deny themselves certain other comforts to mourn the destruction of the temples in Jerusalem more than 2,000 years…
When the Roman Emperor, Justinian I, dedicated Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia as a cathedral, he is said to have proclaimed, “Solomon, I have surpassed thee.” Indeed, the church-turned mosque-turned museum is an architectural wonder of the world, a gem that inspires devotion. Understandably, therefore, faithful Muslims were distraught when in 1934 Ataturk secularized the mosque. How…
All of this heaviness that we, as Americans, have been feeling in recent months is exacerbated by where we, as Jews, find ourselves in the calendar year. As we enter the heat of summer, we land in the scorching energy of two Jewish commemorations: The Seventeenth of Tammuz and Tisha B’Av (the 9th of Av)….
It’s Tisha B’av – the darkest day in the Jewish calendar. We remember the destruction. We mourn the loss of the First and Second Temples. We recall Crusades and pogroms that happened on this same day in years gone by. And each year, after the fasting and the mourning of Tisha B’av, comes Shabbat. This…
(JTA) — For many observant Jews, the mourning over the destruction of the two ancient Temples in Jerusalem on the fast of Tisha B’Av actually begins three weeks earlier with the onset of a period of mourning during which it’s customary to avoid joyful activities like weddings and music. But with much of the world…
I didn’t talk to my roommate for an entire year. I was in 11th grade, at a Yeshiva where the students lived in dormitories on campus. Early in the school year, Sruli and I got into a fight. We were taking turns on a handheld electronic football game we had borrowed from a friend and,…
There is a story first documented at the end of the 1800s and almost certainly false: Napoleon was taking a walk in Paris one August evening when he heard a loud wailing from a nearby synagogue. His servants investigated and found people sitting on the ground, barefoot, weeping into prayer books. They informed Napoleon that…
Time to go to the gym! Grab your sneakers, your water bottle, your headphones or earbuds or air pods. And don’t forget to slip on your Tisha B’Av Jewish Rabbi Yoga Pants Gym Leggings. That bizarro word salad represents, apparently, a product sold by the e-commerce giant Amazon. Tisha B’av, known as the saddest day…
די אַקטריסע זינגט דאָס ליד, „אַ ייִדיש קינד“ בײַ „יונג ייִדיש“ אין תּל־אָבֿיבֿ
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