Nothing evokes the Jewish holidays quite the way chopped liver does. It frequently appears at post-Yom Kippur break-fasts and makes eating matzo on Passover somewhat bearable. How chopped liver became a classic Ashkenazi Jewish staple is less clear. The Jews of Eastern Europe and Russia probably ate offal and lesser cuts of meat and poultry…
Charles Finney was America’s best-known preacher in the 1830s when he invented the altar call. At the end of a revival meeting, he’d invite worshippers stirred by the gospel to come before an altar placed in front of the hall and publicly swear their commitment to Jesus Christ. Finney did this to showcase — critics…
On Yom Kippur this year, I felt my ancestors calling me more than ever before. Normally I spend Yom Kippur in synagogue, but this year I did my t’shuvah (repentance) on the road, walking through neighborhoods, cities and country landscapes as part of the Right2Know March to get genetically modified (GM) foods labeled. As I…
The couple that prays together stays together — right? That’s what celebrity Kremlinologists have been trying to figure since Friday, when reportedly feuding Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher attended services together at the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles. People Magazine reports that the pair sat on opposite sides of the aisle during the service —…
I didn’t go to synagogue for Yom Kippur’s concluding services on Saturday afternoon. Instead, I went to Steve Jobs’ house. I got out of my skirt, put on some sweatpants and biked over to his house, just a few blocks away from mine in Palo Alto, California. There, I joined the crowd that had come…
A large, open plaza across from Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park, where Occupy Wall Street has made its encampment for three weeks, proved to be the perfect setting for Kol Nidre on Friday night. Earlier in the week, when Daniel Sieradski, Occupy Wall Street protester and self-styled “new media activist,” wondered on Facebook and Twitter whether he…
The Yom Kippur service at the ongoing anti-corporate protests in downtown Manhattan will be used to expand the scope of the activists’ “occupation” of the Financial District, according to the service’s organizer. Activists who have been camping at a public plaza near Wall Street asked Dan Sieradski, the Jewish new media activist who has organized…
His commitment to Judaism — and college football — is impressive. For the second time in recent years, Nebraska football fan Joel Alperson is taking extraordinary measures to observe the High Holy Days, and to ensure Jewish fans don’t miss a moment of the Cornhuskers’ season. Omaha resident Alperson is flying New York City Rabbi…
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