As Jews prayed this weekend to be sealed into the Book of Life, vandals in a upstate New York town of Warwick disrespected their dead. Police in the town on October 9 alerted officials at nearby Temple Beth Shalom that the front of their cemetery had been defaced with a spray-painted swastika and Nazi slogans…
I am terrible at fasting, so Yom Kippur is a day I dread. This year, though, the Day of Atonement offered a liberating surprise for me, as a transplanted mother in Israel. Between my excruciating headache and bouts of vomiting, I marveled at the amazing freedom I could give my son on this day. It’s…
I spent Yom Kippur this year dipping pork chops in olive oil, preparing lunch for the clients of St. John’s Bread and Life, an amazing anti-poverty organization in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. It marked a significant transformation from my upbringing: I grew up in one of the few religious households in a Conservative synagogue in Hamilton, Ontario,…
As Jews in New York today got ready to start their Yom Kippur fast at sundown, the city offered them one more opportunity to chow down — and also to register to vote. As part of the “Nosh the Vote” program, a dozen food trucks and street carts across the five boroughs today distributed voter…
Today is National Coming Out Day, and tonight is the beginning of Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is Judaism’s highest holiday, and on it, we happen to read those infamous words, “A man shall not lie with a man as he does with a woman; it is an abomination” (Leviticus 18:22). As a gay Jew, even…
The Israeli female web comedy team, Ha Israeliot (“The Israeli Girls”) is apologizing on behalf Israel to the world for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. In a video released on Facebook the week ahead of Yom Kippur, the women address a handful of not-so-serious Israeli transgressions. The video, which was also published on…
Last week on Rosh HaShanah, I looked out at the sea of faces in synagogue and declared: “Today, I stand before you, my heart full of joy for having made it to this day. I am not cancer-free, but the medications I’m now taking are gentle, and are controlling the disease.” The congregation erupted: Amen….
On Yom Kippur in Israel, the streets are silent. There are no buses, taxis or even private cars, as drivers respect local custom and keep off the road on Judaism’s holiest day. For bikers in Israel, it’s a holiday of a different kind. While devout Israelis are fasting or praying, secular Israelis take to the…
100% of profits support our journalism
