By MARILYN SHAPIRO Every Friday afternoon since the corona virus has turned our world upside down, I have been baking fresh challah. I revel in the process: the measuring, the gradual rising, and especially the eating. But it has become so much more. As Roche Pinson wrote in her book, Rising: The Book of Challah, “We make challah from a […]

By Marilyn Shapiro Yes, I know the old adage that says life changes on a dime, and that you never know what will happen tomorrow. But now my life is filled with too many questions regarding the future. Will Larry, my husband, or I contract COVID-19? If we do, will we die? How about my children and grandchildren? What are their chances of […]

By Rev. ANTHONY A. JOHNSON ATLANTA (JTA) – A lot of my Jewish friends are asking me how they can help and what needs to be done regarding the killing and lynching of individuals and families in the black community, most recently George Floyd. To put yourselves in our shoes for a moment, imagine what the response of the Jewish […]

… lessen the pain whenever you see an animal suffering, even through no fault of yours. (Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, Horeb, Chapter 60, #416) By MARILYN SHAPIRO One of the advantages in living in our community in Florida is the abundance of wildlife that surrounds us. In the past week, Larry, my husband and I, have seen otters frolic near […]

By MARILYN SHAPIRO Some day—hopefully in the near future—the COVID-19 pandemic will be behind us. Medical interventions to those infected will alleviate the pain, suffering, and deaths. A vaccine may be developed that can prevent others from becoming ill. Social distancing will no longer be necessary. We can go back to our lives, our jobs, our schools, our vacations, and […]

By MARILYN SHAPIRO As we tread carefully through the fourth month of the coronavirus pandemic, the emotional and physical devastation this plague has caused is felt acutely. As our days of sheltering at home continue, it has become much more real, much more personal and much more frightening. My husband Larry and I are feeling the impact, as I suspect […]

By MARILYN SHAPIRO As I now write for Jewish newspapers in both the Capital District and Central Florida, my articles often include Hebrew and/or Yiddish words. Understanding that people may not be familiar with these languages, I have made a concerted effort to make sure that I define those words in the context of the sentence. Yiddish Or Not? I […]

By Rabbi JONAH GEFFEN NEW YORK CITY (JTA) – On Monday, April 20. I officiated my first funeral in the time of social distancing. My clergy colleagues have been doing this for weeks and been through so much more. I’m in awe. But I wanted to share my experience — mostly to process, partially to inform. Survivor Dies Alone On […]

By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — Today, at 100 years old, Jozef Walaszczyk is Poland’s oldest living rescuer of Jews.He was fortunate enough just to survive World War II. As a partisan fighter who specialized in smuggling arms in Nazi-occupied Poland, Walaszczyk assumed that the Gestapo would catch up with him at some point. He just expected it to […]

I have ceased to expect appropriate help from administrators, institutions, and the government itself. By Steven McDonald Professor of emergency medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center The Atlantic I trained for this moment. All emergency-medicine physicians did. Residency training—the notorious gantlet that turns medical students into attending physicians—prepared me to manage an onslaught of patients entirely on my own. […]