By Rabbi SHMUEL GOLDIN (JNS) – I can clearly remember the moment when I finally joined the club that I had dreaded joining for years; when I found myself remaining in shul to recite the prayer of Yizkor for the first time. Hesitantly, I waited with trepidation to experience the power of this first Yizkor … only to be sorely let down. “This is […]

By Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” Based on ancient Jewish Sages, September 17, 2019, https://bit.ly/2npwl9m More on Yom Kippur and other Jewish holidays: http://bit.ly/137Er6J 1. Yom Kippur is observed on the 10th day of the Jewish month of Tishrei (October 9, 2019), whose astrological sign is Libra (♎), which symbolizes the key themes of Yom Kippur: […]

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 Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” Based on ancient Jewish Sages, https://bit.ly/2mOFl7g More on Rosh Hashanah and other Jewish holidays: http://bit.ly/137Er6J 1. The conventional meaning of the two Hebrew words Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is: the beginning (Rosh in Hebrew) of the year (Shanah in Hebrew). The evening of September 29, 2019 will launch […]

Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, “Second Thought: a US-Israel Initiative” September 5, 2019, https://bit.ly/2lYTD4F The Palestinian leadership is rehashing the notion that Palestine has been Arab/Muslim from time immemorial. But, is such a claim consistent with historic documentation? According to Brown University Prof. David Jacobson, “the Greek Palaistine and the Latin [Rome] Palaestina… appear to refer not to the Land of […]

By DROR EYDAR (Israel Hayom via JNS) – Historical memory is not a matter for annoying arguments about minutiae, it’s an issue of national security. We remember, therefore we are. “By the rivers of Babylon,” a Jewish exile wrote in Psalms after the destruction of the First Temple, “there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion” (Psalms 137:1). […]

By DEBORAH FINEBLUM (JNS) – Memory and imagination: The two keys that unlock the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av. In fact Tisha B’Av, a holiday many Jews seem unfamiliar with, is all about memory, the collective memory of the Jewish people, as much a family as it is a religion. But to tap into the Jewish collective memory bank, we […]

By Rabbi SHMULY YANKLOWITZ PHOENIX (JTA) – Israeli Education Minister Rafi Peretz’s recent tone-deaf declaration that intermarriage is akin to a “second Holocaust” was shocking and shameful, and desecrates the memories of those who perished in the Holocaust. While Peretz leads the Jewish Home party as well as the United Right coalition, and is known for a Kahanist ideology, we […]

By DAVID SUISSA (Jewish Journal via JNS) – We take it for granted that the way to address the evil of anti-Semitism is to fight it. It’s a natural part of our vocabulary. We fight, we confront, we condemn, we call out. We refuse to stand idly by. All of that makes perfect sense. But on this 25th anniversary of […]