The island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands was among the worst hit by hurricane Irma. But even wind gusts of near 200 miles per hour and torrential rain could not prevent the local synagogue from holding Shabbat services. And Irma failed to damage the synagogue’s treasured Torah scrolls. The Hebrew Congregation of…
When Hurricane Andrew hit Florida in 1992, it tore part of the roof off Bet Shira Congregation in Miami, leaving the synagogue flooded for days. It took two weeks before electricity was restored, and two months until activity in the Conservative congregation could be resumed. Andrew was a Category 5 hurricane, just like Hurricane Irma,…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. S. Y. Stupnitsky, a forgotten twentieth-century Jewish journalist, made a prescient observation about the great historic Jewish structures in Europe: “Jews built them, and today non-Jews possess them.” Stupnitsky’s words certainly ring true about Yeshivat Chachmei Lublin, the educational brainchild of Meir Shapiro, a Polish rabbi who…
It was a Thursday evening in the winter, and the sun was sinking as I waited at a bus stop in Givat Shaul, practicing to chant my Torah reading from photocopied sheets of paper. Moses was late in coming down the mountain, and the bus was late in coming to our part of Jerusalem, so…
The great Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev was known for his love of Jews and his refusal to denigrate another. It is told of him that once, on the morning of Yom Kippur, he saw a man smoking outside the synagogue. Yitzhak approached the man and said, “Surely, my friend, you do not know that it…
Archaeologists funded by Christian organizations are taking a shovel — again — to Tel Shiloh, an archaeological site that was a major center of worship for ancient Israelites. They’re looking for the ark of the covenant, the holy chest containing the two stone tablets on which Moses is said to have written the Ten Commandments,…
Researchers from Cambridge have identified the author of an 10th century collection of biblical scriptures: Samuel ben Jacob, the same scribe who penned the Leningrad Codex. The Codex is the main Hebrew copy of the bible on which most modern translations are based. The manuscript contains sections from Prophets, Judges and Kings, and was likely…
It has been twenty years since Scholastic Books made the best choice in its history by publishing a children’s novel about an orphaned boy who finds out that he’s a wizard. While Judaism generally does not make a big deal about birthdays (the only Biblical character who celebrates his birthday is Pharaoh), we are no…
100% of profits support our journalism
