If you don’t see anything wrong with this cake my friend found at a Whole Foods in Rockville, Maryland, I’ll let you in on a secret: Jewish people observe Yom Kippur by fasting. As in, not eating. So, no cake. Not even if it’s been decorated with every well-known symbol of the Jewish religion including…
Usually, after Yom Kippur, I write a list of character flaws I vow to address in the new year, place it in my wallet, and then promptly forget about it. I always want that final shofar blast to truly awaken me, to shake me into action, to help me become a better person, but I…
The streets of Jerusalem were deserted. The only remnants of life were the echoes of Jewish prayers nearby, solemn echoes heard on this day in this place for millennia. Those chants in minor key reverberated to me like the mourning of memories past. Was it regret I heard? Sadness? Duty? The prayers followed me along…
It was the summer of 1967. Wearing some flowers in your hair. Free music in the park. Acid trips. Haight-Ashbury. The Monterey Pop Festival. “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” And it was also 50 years ago today, “Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.” A half-century ago, the Beatles released the soundtrack to the…
How much will a synagogue seat this High Holidays season run you? Quite a lot, in some cities. Curious about the exact numbers, we did a survey of some of the most expensive synagogue sanctuary seats in New York City, comparing price tags according to numbers posted online and those given by synagogue receptionists. The…
(JTA) — Animal rights activists protesting the Jewish custom of swinging around a chicken were assaulted in the Israeli city of Hadera. Six of the activists, one man and five women, were lightly wounded in the incident Thursday night, in which residents in Hadera began throwing stones and other objects at the protesters who came…
A version of this article originally appeared in New Voices. Throughout college, I struggled with an eating disorder. In many ways, it first manifested itself during Yom Kippur freshman year. From there, it was a downward spiral into self-hatred, an obsession with calories, and compensatory cardio. Four Yom Kippurs in a row, I fasted too…
Recently, a friend wrote a piece that appeared in these pages. When I glanced at the comments that were posted, I was shocked by how vitriolic they were toward my friend and toward the other commenters. Almost none of them addressed the substance of the piece. Instead, they were ad hominem attacks on the writer…
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