By Mayim Bialik LOS ANGELES (JTA) — In the Reform synagogue I was raised in, they taught us a song around the Jewish New Year: Let’s be friends. Make amends. Now’s the time to say I’m sorry. Let’s be friends. Make amends. Please say you’ll forgive me. For the 10 days of teshuvah, it’s time to make up; time to […]

By ARIELLE KAPLAN (Alma via JTA) – Much to my mother’s dismay, I’m not fasting on Yom Kippur and I’m not going to synagogue. Why? Because I don’t believe in God. But despite my lack of faith in a higher being, I take the High Holidays very seriously. For those who need a refresher, here’s a crash course. On Rosh […]

By JULIE MATLIN MONTREAL (JTA) – Picking through gefilte fish in the kosher department, searching for the freshest packages, I think of my Grandma Fanny. She made her gefilte fish from scratch, lovingly combining the cod, whitefish, pike and whatever other secret ingredients she threw in that made it so good. “This is delicious,” my brother’s roommate remarked one year. […]

By FAYGIE HOLT (JNS) – When the power went out in Jackson, N.J., on a particularly hot summer night, Howard Orama and his family, including his wife, Carol, and adult son, were planning to do what they always did: simply weather it out. As U.S. Air Force veteran, Orama was used to handling things on his own and this time […]

“Do your little bit of good where you are; It’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” Desmond Tutu. By MARILYN SHAPIRO This morning, as I have done almost every Monday morning for the past four years, I mailed out a small stack of postcards. Just call it my very small attempt to do little bits […]

as imagined by grand-nephew By LANCE ALLEN WANG As we approach Memorial Day, our thoughts may turn to those who have served, and especially within our community, our Jewish veterans, especially those who have passed. My uncle, known at one time as Lieutenant Julius “Julie” Zlasner, served as a B-17 navigator for 27 missions over the Third Reich and I’m […]

By MARILYN SHAPIRO My husband Larry was born the week that the State of Israel was born. For the rest of his life, his birthday celebration would be entwined with the founding of a new country. In 1961, Larry’s entire bar/bat mitzvah class and their families participated in a presentation conducted by Israeli Bond representatives. As a result, Larry’s parents, along […]

By HENRY ABRAMSON NEW YORK CITY (JTA) – It is jarring to see a Star of David placed between the Hebrew transliteration of the words Bergen-Belsen, the notorious Nazi concentration camp where 37,000 Jews, including Anne Frank, were murdered – and on a marriage contract, no less. But there it was, a small bureaucratic form, typed in Rabbinic Hebrew, meant to address the heartbreaking […]

By MARILYN SHAPIRO When Dr. Liz Ross joins her fellow women congregants at Shalom Aleichem Synagogue on the bima for the blessing over the candles, she pulls the hood of her kuspuk, her traditional Native Alaskan snow dress, over her head. And on her neck, her gold Star of David catches the light of the flickering flames. A businesswoman, a […]

By BRIAN D. JOHNSON MADISON, Wisconsin (JTA) – Somewhere, there’s a photograph: My future father-in-law is sitting at the head of the table. My future mother-in-law is sitting to his left and I’m sitting on his right, wearing a suit, tie and kippah. My stunningly beautiful fiancée is next to me, and the rest of the table consists of three […]