California regulators ordered two Orthodox Jewish groups in Los Angeles to stop performing the Yom Kippur ritual kapparot. The state’s Department of Food and Agriculture on Friday shut down kapparot at the Ohel Moshe synagogue and the Beit Aaron outreach organization. They were accused of operating unlicensed slaughterhouses, according to reports. Animal rights activists had…
A year and a half ago, when I found out the man who caused my brother’s death had died, heavy emotion flooded my body. Not because it made me miss my brother, Josh, who was hit by this man’s car and killed in October 2002. Not because it made me envision the rendition of the…
Israel is getting ready for the hottest and longest Yom Kippur for decades. Well, not actually longer than normal, but it will feel longer. Israel has long adjusted the clock to wintertime ahead of the fast, so that it finishes some time between six and seven pm, rather than between seven and eight. But following…
Every Jew knows a thing or two about the annual Hunger Games. In ” Kvetching Fire”, a high holiday parody, Peeta Hummus and Katniss Everstein take on the ultimate challenge: the Yom Kippur fast. Good luck and “may the lox be ever in your flavor!”
Israelis are bracing themselves for an especially hot Yom Kippur, with temperatures rising Friday to over 40 degrees in the Golan Heights and Lake Kinneret region. In the Dan region the mercury will rise to 34 degrees with relative humidity of 50 percent. Jerusalem will see 36 degrees. Saturday, the day of the fast, will…
There’s nothing like knowing you can’t eat to make a person want to eat. For many Jews, Yom Kippur means a 25-hour fast bracketed by two meals – the pre-fast seudat mafseket and the meal to break the fast. But just because you’ve managed to make it through those 25 hours without eating doesn’t mean…
Golf-ball sized, purple tomatoes hang heavy on the vine, ripe and ready for the picking. “You know tomatoes are ready when they easily pop right off at the stem,” announces Marybeth Lybrand, the Master Gardener at the Peninsula Jewish Community Center’s Gan Tzedek, or Justice Garden. “If you have to really tug to on the…
Last year this time I sat on the brink of something incredible. Sitting in shul at the beginning of a new year, I was facing marriage, college graduation and the start of a new job. Nothing in life is certain, but the upcoming year still held considerable promise, more so than any other in my…
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