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Religion & Jewish Life

Lisa Schroeder, the owner and chef of Mother's Bistro & Bar in Portland, Ore., dishes out advice along with her comfort food. (Alicia J. Rose Photography)

Meet restaurateur Lisa Schroeder, Portland’s unofficial Jewish mother in chief

Posted under National, Religion & Jewish Life on May 1st, 2013. Leave a Comment »

PORTLAND, Ore. (JTA) — It’s brunch time at Mother’s Bistro & Bar and owner-chef Lisa Schroeder has a small crisis on her hands involving the accidental defenestration of a busboy. Moments earlier, a server had tripped and gone flying through one of the restaurant’s large picture windows. Shattered glass covered the pavement outside, where the [...]

Can a moderate chief rabbi transform the Israeli Rabbinate? Not really

Posted under Israel, Religion & Jewish Life on May 1st, 2013. Leave a Comment »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — To get married in Israel, Dima Motel had to bring his family photo album and two of his ancestors’ birth certificates to a rabbinical court. Then an investigator quizzed his mother in Yiddish. Israel’s Chief Rabbinate often asks Russian immigrants like Motel to prove that they’re Jewish, sometimes requiring documentary evidence [...]

Portland Jews attending the opening night of Food for Thought, a festival organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, April 18, 2013. (Lee Ann Gauthier)

Amid Portland’s Jewish population surge, community leaders try to lure the young and hip

Posted under Religion & Jewish Life on May 1st, 2013. Leave a Comment »

PORTLAND, Ore. (JTA) — Jessica Bettelheim, a business ethics lecturer at Portland State University and a young Jewish mother, has little time to spare on weekends. Like other professionals her age, she’s busy bonding with her husband and 4-year-old daughter, meeting friends at one of Portland’s many fine restaurants or gardening, a favorite pastime in [...]

Ricotta flan with raspberry sauce is a lighter alternative to the traditional Shavuot cheesecake. (From "Helen Nash's New Kosher Cuisine")

Celebrate Shavuot with the best of the spring season

Posted under Religion & Jewish Life on May 1st, 2013. Leave a Comment »

NEW YORK (JTA) — With its tradition of dairy meals, Shavuot is one of my favorite holidays. Arriving later in the spring — an ideal time to find delicious fruits, herbs and vegetables — it’s perfect for using fresh and seasonal ingredients. The four dishes I have selected for a Shavuot menu not only are [...]

Rabbi David Lazar, left, showing a Torah scroll to Swedish government minister Stefan Attefall at the Great Synagogue of Stockholm, November 2011. (Regeringskansliet, The government of Sweden)

Rabbi David Lazar, too brash for Stockholm?

Posted under Religion & Jewish Life, World on April 29th, 2013. Leave a Comment »

(JTA) — Having grown up in a devoutly Christian home, Irene Lopez would probably not be raising her daughter Jewish if not for David Lazar, the charismatic rabbi of the Great Synagogue of Stockholm. Lopez and her Jewish husband, Samuel Sjoblom, are among the Swedes who were drawn to the Great Synagogue in recent years [...]

A display of home-brewed beers. Thinking of the bonfires of Lag b'Omer, a Jewish home brewer suggests a smoked porter. (Edmon J. Rodman)

Brewing up a new connection to Lag b’Omer

Posted under Religion & Jewish Life on April 22nd, 2013. Leave a Comment »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Sit back by the bonfire and pop open a brewski, it’s Lag b’Omer. Since we have been counting the Omer — a biblical measure of barley that was brought as an offering to the Temple — each evening from the second night of Passover, what better way to mark the coming [...]

Members of a police SWAT team make a door-to-door search in Watertwon, Mass., for the 19-year-old Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on April 19, 2013. (Spencer Platt/Getty)

In Watertown, Mass., prepping for Shabbat after a night of gunfire and explosions

Posted under National, News, Religion & Jewish Life on April 19th, 2013. Leave a Comment »

(Jewish Exponent) — Shelly Levy and Ken Lebowitz had planned to bake their own challah for Shabbat on Friday, but then came the lockdown. As residents of Watertown, Mass., ground zero for the citywide manhunt for the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, they weren’t able to get out of the house to buy [...]

David Popovits, owner of the Matzah Soldier, sits down for a meal at his upscale restaurant in Budapest, March 2013. (Canaan Liphshiz/JTA)

Budapest bistro Matzah Soldier drawing trendy clientele with a fresh take on grandma’s cooking

Posted under Dining Out, Religion & Jewish Life, World on April 17th, 2013. Leave a Comment »

BUDAPEST, Hungary (JTA) — On a corner in the heart of the former Jewish ghetto here, David Popovits sits down for some matzah ball soup and super-sized dumplings at his newly opened kosher-style restaurant. A burly, 40-year-old Hungarian Jewish businessman, Popovits used to eat in the restaurant as a boy, when its former owners ran [...]

Deception deals blow to reputation of prominent Orthodox rabbi, Michael Broyde

Posted under Religion & Jewish Life on April 17th, 2013. Leave a Comment »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Until last week, Michael Broyde was considered one of the most respected Orthodox rabbis in America. A professor of law at Emory University, the author of dozens of books and articles, and a leading authority on the intersection of religious and secular law, Broyde was sought after regularly to render opinions [...]

Birthright participants visiting Masada, summer 2012. (Taglit-Birthright)

The Birthright Israel flip side: Fewer high school students traveling to Israel

Posted under Israel, News, Religion & Jewish Life on April 16th, 2013. Leave a Comment »

NEW YORK (JTA) — With the summer travel season fast approaching, providers of Israel programs for teenagers are bracing themselves for what several say could be a season of historically low travel in a year unaffected by major security concerns. Over the past decade, Israel travel among those aged 13 to 18 has seen a [...]