The High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) are prime time for rabbis. On these Days of Awe, above all others, sanctuaries are filled to overflowing with Jews seeking spiritual connection or simply to embrace timeless traditions. With all… Read more »
Rabbi David Ebstein, right, speaks to Congregation Bet Shalom members and friends at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem in July 2014. From left, Kathy McGuire Rubin, Paul Araiza, Helena Lamb, Elinor Engelhard, tour guide (name unknown) and Bernard Engelhard.
There were three rabbis who deeply influenced me as a young man: my director at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin, my Hillel director at Washington University and the rabbi of my hometown synagogue. All three were marvelous role models, learned men and righteous Jews. My hometown family rabbi, Rav Bill… Read more »
Rabbi Yossie Shemtov, regional director of Chabad Tucson, right, and Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild light the grand menorah at El Presidio Park in 2011.
My aspiration to become a rabbi and lead a Jewish community dates back to my childhood years in New York, having been raised in the Grand Central Station. I am not referring to the landmark train station in midtown Manhattan. “Grand Central” is what we called my parents’ home… Read more »
Rabbi Stephanie Aaron celebrates her birthday during a special oneg Shabbat with members of Congregation Chaverim on June 19.
A Reform rabbi and an Orthodox rabbi were my mentors, my guides and my inspirations to become a rabbi. Rabbi Joseph Weizenbaum, z’l, the Reform rabbi of my youth, my bat mitzvah, and my teenage understanding of Judaism, was certainly the rabbi who led the way, who motivated me… Read more »
Rabbi Billy Lewkowicz, right, with Rabbi Moshe Klein at the writing of a Sefer Torah for the Foothills Shul at Bais Yael, Oct. 19, 2014.
I grew up in South Africa in a vibrant Jewish community. As a child I was encouraged to join Jewish youth groups. I loved the activities and discussions. However, about Judaism I had many unanswered questions. Then it all unraveled. There was a youth Shabbaton in Johannesburg. It was… Read more »
Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin of Chabad Tucson holds a Sunshine Club program at Atria Valley Manor in December 2014.
The spacious room was lined up with green cushioned chairs ready for another session of “Chat with Rabbi Yudi” at a retirement community in Tucson. As I walk in, I found a single person sitting there. “It’s just me …” she sheepishly said. “Will you still stay?” “Of course!”… Read more »
Rabbi Thomas Louchheim teaches in the Congregation Or Chadash Religious School on Sept. 29, 2013, using the St. Joseph Torah Scroll that had been donated by a congregation in Missouri, which Or Chadash had repaired in 2013.
I always wanted to be a lawyer. As a project in elementary school, we were asked to determine what classes in high school and college we would need to take to prepare us for our chosen professions. I interviewed one lawyer, sent letters to a few law schools and… Read more »
Rabbi Batsheva Appel, left, and Temple Emanu-El congregant Susan Brish hold the lulav during Sukkot services on Oct. 10, 2014.
It was either astronaut or rabbi. As a fifth grade student, the homework assignment was to prepare a drawing about what we would like to be when we grew up, and I handed in two very different drawings. One of me as an astronaut and the other of me… Read more »
Rabbi Robert Eisen points to the Torah being held by Fay Green, left, and Hyla Windham at Congregation Anshei Israel’s Mitzvah 613 Celebration on Dec. 16, 2012.
How I became a rabbi is easy to describe: I went to undergraduate school and rabbinic school; spent the requisite number of hours studying, writing papers and preparing for exams; and had a student pulpit for three years of “hands-on training.” But why I became a rabbi is something… Read more »
Rabbi Ephraim Zimmerman and Esta Goldstein of Saddlebrooke hold an old Megillah scroll at Oro Valley Meet Yourself: A Celebration of Diverse Cultures on March 22.
I grew up in Chicago, number seven in a family of 11 children. Being that I was born into a Chabad family, I was involved in Jewish outreach since I was in elementary school. My first experiences were when my father used to take me with him to the… Read more »
Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon with members of the Temple Emanu-El Youth Choir during the "Greatest Hanukkah on Earth XVI" celebration in December 2014.
My grandfather was an important Reform rabbi — he wrote one of the four platforms the movement has ever produced — and my father is a prominent cantor and rabbi, but I never thought about becoming a rabbi growing up. When I began singing in my teens I did… Read more »
Rabbi Helen Cohn, left, talks with Congregation M’kor Hayim congregants Ann Markewitz, Grace Hartman and Bob Chasan earlier this summer.
I grew up in a secular but Jewishly identified home. Once I left for college, and later married a man who wasn’t Jewish, my connection to Judaism was limited to occasional family seders. Years later, single again and on a business trip in New England, I decided on a… Read more »
Rabbi Israel Becker celebrates with young congregants at Congregation Chofetz Chayim’s Chanukah party on Dec. 16, 2014.
The triumph of my parents’ survival from the Holocaust was to raise a Jewish family and live a vibrant Jewish life. Their deep love of Judaism, their understanding of the need to protect it and their joy in sharing it proved to be formative influences in ways that I… Read more »
President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem, March 22, 2013. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Now that enactment of the Iran nuclear deal appears to be a sure thing, the profound and often personal disagreement between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Iran is not about to go away. In the contemplative spirit of the Days of… Read more »
Migrants cross into Hungary as they walk over railroad tracks at the Serbian border, Sept. 8. (Dan Kirkwood/Getty Images
Editor’s note: For the local response, see JFSA facilitates gift for Syrian refugee aid (JTA) — When he looks into the tired eyes of the Syrian refugees now flooding Europe’s borders, Guy Sorman is reminded of his father, Nathan, who fled Germany for France just months before Adolf Hitler… Read more »
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona recently received a $25,000 gift from a donor advised fund at the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona, which it forwarded to the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief to aid the swelling population of migrants and Syrian refugees in Europe and the Middle… Read more »
Iranians walk through Tehran's old main bazaar, March 18, 2014. (Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – If you’re an American who likes Iranian caviar and pistachios, you’re in for a treat. Once the nuclear deal with Iran is implemented, the U.S. sanctions that until now have blocked the export of those Iranian foodstuffs into the United States will be lifted. Bon appetit.… Read more »
Tourists at Auschwitz photographing the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate, July 2015. (Ruth Ellen Gruber)
(JTA) – Pawel Sawicki gets to his desk every morning by 7, but he works no regular office job. Sawicki is an information officer at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial and Museum, the sprawling complex in southern Poland that encompasses the largest and most notorious Nazi death camp. More than… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — As 5775 winds to a close, here’s a look back on the highs and lows (and everything in between) of the year that was. September 2014 At the annual U.N. General Assembly, President Barack Obama focuses his speech on the ISIS, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin… Read more »
The Vilnius Palace of Concerts and Sports, a complex that was shut down a decade ago, is the site of a proposed $25 million conference center. (Flickr Commons)
VILNIUS, Lithuania (JTA) – It’s one of the most intriguing sites in all of Vilnius: a massive Soviet-style sports complex built in 1971 that since its closure in 2004 has become a run-down haven for vagrants. Now the Lithuanian government has some grand plans to renovate the rotting behemoth… Read more »
