Jewish Blogs

What do Chinese think of Jews?

With China all the rage in the news as an up and coming power both politically and economically, the obvious question is – what do the Chinese think of the Jews? We’ve stumbled upon an interesting video that takes a look… A New York Jew in China – What Do Chinese People Think of Jews? from Forverts on Vimeo. Readers ...

We Wish You a Dramatic Passover

We wish all of our readers a dramatic Passover. Actually we think it may be appropriate officially to wish you all an anxiety-ridden Passover. And most probably it is not at all proper to wish you a happy Passover. It’s a bit tricky to explain this. We start with the Midrash books called Pesikta Derav Kehana and Yalkut Shimoni. Both ...

Times Travels to Uman and Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s Grave

Our son Yitz told us he did not like one of the pictures in this story about Uman in T the Times’ Travel magazine. We said, what is Uman? In “One Schlep Forward” Gideon Lewis-Kraus explains in a funny story from his forthcoming book – A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful – that it is ...

The Tznius Crisis

I would like to personally thank you for bringing the issue of tznius to the public. Since I read your letter, it has opened my eyes to a problem that is surely bigger and more severe than anything else facing our community. I myself have grown up very naive about tznius. It wasn’t discussed much at all in my home, ...

That “Aha” Moment

Every teacher has a reason why they entered the world of education. Some say it’s because they love working with children, others say it’s because one teacher made a difference in their lives, and some will admit that it’s because they get holidays and summers off. When people ask why I became a teacher, specifically a special educator, my response ...

Teaching Civil Rights to Jews

Many of us know that Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel walked with Martin Luther King Jr. at the Selma Civil Rights March in 1965. But that’s just a tiny bit of the history of Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement. If you’re struggling to teach a civil rights lesson to your Hebrew or Sunday school class, you’re in luck! The ...

Summer and the Educator

Somehow summer has flown by—it’s August 19, which pretty much came out of nowhere. If you’re anything like me, summer started with grand plans and lofty ambitions. The pages in the calendar stretched on and on, and great adventures were planned for sometime later this summer. And, somehow… summer is coming to a screeching, halting stop. Back to school sales ...

Selichot are Not Outcries

My teacher, Rav Soloveitchik taught that the selichot prayers are an outcry to God, a form of prayer that is out loud and hence a blatant public event. Outcry prayers he says, are different from more ordinary request prayers, more dramatic and more emotional. The obvious repetition in those liturgies makes sense to the Rav because outbursts expressing needs and drama ...

Rosh Hashanah 2013 – 5 Things You Should Know

Here is my “5 Things You Should Know About Rosh Hashanah” article, originally published in the AOL/HuffingtonPost Patch.com in 2011: The Jewish New Year celebration, Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew, meaning “the head of the year”) begins this week on Wednesday evening and lasts until Friday. Here are five things that everyone should know about the holiday. Popularity On the Jewish calendar, ...

Recipes for a New Rosh on Rosh Hashanah

With all the new food recipes available for this Rosh Hashanah . . . it might also be good to have a Recipe for a New Rosh this Rosh Hashanah, so . . For 5771 and going forward I will do my best to . . . 1) only think and say nice things about a fellow Jew or say ...

Prinz, Persecution, and the Pursuit of Justice

I’ve been working at the Jewish Women’s Archive since the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in 2011. In my almost-three years here, I have learned one thing above all else: in order to understand ourselves, to know our past, and to build our future, we must tell our stories. And this past week has been one of my ...

Pomegranate and Vanilla-Honey Parfait

Food is never simply food on a Jewish table. Rather, it’s symbolic and carries meaning that goes beyond the sum of its parts. With Rosh Hashanah beginning in just a few days, we’ll be sitting down to tables full of meaning. This is especially the case with the New Year given that this holiday has the highest number of symbolic ...