Religion & Jewish Life

(Kveller via JTA) – “Winter is coming.” These three words have hung over mothers like dark clouds for decades, long before “Game of Thrones” came along. For we all know what that short, ominous phrase means: months of interminable sickness in the house. As the days shorten, germs will… Read more »

(JTA) — Do you go to shul, temple, synagogue, minyan or just services? Let me ask it another way: That synagogue you won’t set foot in — Do you call it a shul, temple, synagogue, minyan or services? I’m not being judgy. It’s a question about language. Working at… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Liana Finck is in the eating area of a grocery store in Southampton, New York, and I’ve interrupted her beach excursion. Once a week, the Brooklyn-based illustrator rides a train to the east end of Long Island to channel her creative energy. She wakes up… Read more »

The story of Irena Sendler, the Polish social worker who hid 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis during World War II, is now a children’s book. “Mommy, Who Was Irena Sendler?” by Cathy Werling is the third volume in the Unsung Heroes children’s book series, published by the Lowell… Read more »

“This Hanukkah, let’s celebrate the power of light to overcome darkness,” says Jeff Janezcko, Ph.D., curator of the Milken Archive of Jewish Music. “Let’s celebrate the resilience of the human spirit. Let’s celebrate the power of a gift, given with intention to inspire hope.” As he wrote, there were… Read more »

Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte and Gertie. The names of the five fictional sisters bring a smile to generations of Jewish Americans who grew up reading “All-of-a-Kind Family,” the classic mid-century chapter book series by Sydney Taylor that followed the day-to-day doings and adventures of a Jewish-American immigrant family on… Read more »

NEW YORK — The bialy challah practically glowed, swirls of caramelized onion peeking out between its braided, poppy-dusted strands. In a charming red-and-white tiled kitchen at the back of a Brooklyn bookstore, some 50 people gathered around a long table to watch a trio of chefs prepare an unusual… Read more »

(JTA) — Some college students who think about becoming rabbis aren’t sure whether they will want to work in a synagogue or school. Others get hung up on which seminary to attend or denomination to join. Lior Gross had a different dilemma: How to speak Hebrew in the first… Read more »

(JTA) — “The Kominsky Method” is the wisest and saddest new comedy on television. That might be its biggest problem. The protagonist of the eight-episode Netflix series that debuts Friday is Sandy Kominsky (played by Michael Douglas), a Jewish Tony Award-winning actor who landed with a thud in Hollywood.… Read more »

(JTA) — The death toll and damage continue to rise in California in the wildfires ravaging the state. More than 6,400 homes have been damaged and at least 31 people have been killed, according to CNN. Like other Californians, Jewish residents are evacuating their homes and dealing with the… Read more »

Rabbi Robert Eisen, left, and Rabbi Batsheva Appel

Rabbi Robert Eisen of Congregation Anshei Israel and Rabbi Batsheva Appel of Temple Emanu-El will exchange pulpits this weekend for “Unity in the Faceof Brokenness,” a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht. Kristallnacht, which is German for “Crystal Night,” is also known as “The Night of Broken Glass.”… Read more »

Updated 11.12.18: This event has been cancelled. Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Women’s Philanthropy will host a Mystery Mitzvah Morning for newcomers and longtime residents on Sunday, Nov. 18, from 9:30-11:30 a.m. The event will begin with a light breakfast at the Harvey and Deanna Evenchik Center for Jewish… Read more »

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Growing up, Jaap Soesan would count the days until his parents would take him to Waterloo Square, a central area that many people here call the Jewish market. “It was a treat to go there,” recalled Soesan, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor from the Amsterdam suburb of… Read more »

When Genevieve Liu was 13, an unimaginable tragedy dramatically changed her life. She was on the Lake Michigan shore on vacation with her family in Michigan on Aug. 5, 2012, when her father, a celebrated pediatric surgeon, spotted two boys drowning in the lake. He rushed into… Read more »

(JTA) — Six days ago, on Shabbat, Rabbi Jonathan Perlman was hiding in a pitch-black storage closet as one of his congregants was shot dead in front of him. The time since has been filled with funerals, counseling congregants and figuring out how to move forward as a community,… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Growing up, Devin Goldstein often felt alienated from Judaism. The 17-year-old recalls having to wear traditionally feminine outfits when the family attended synagogue. That was painful for Goldstein, who has since come out as transgender. “It meant I had to get dressed in clothes I… Read more »

CLEVELAND (Cleveland Jewish News via JTA) — Browns rookie kicker Greg Joseph said it’s been a “wild ride” for him since being cut at the end of preseason by the Miami Dolphins, signing with Cleveland in Week 3 of the regular season, and just days later, playing an integral… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Ten Jewish-American baseball players gained Israeli citizenship and can now help the country’s national team in international competition leading up to the 2020 Olympics. The players together applied for and received citizenship on Wednesday at the Bureau of Population and Immigration office in Jaffa. They and… Read more »

(JTA) — The British soccer club Chelsea is planning to send fans who are caught chanting anti-Semitic songs on a tour of the former death camp Auschwitz rather than punishing them. The team’s owner, Roman Abramovich, who is Jewish, has spearheaded the initiative to combat anti-Semitism, according to a… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Shais Rishon thinks of American Jewish literature, virtually no Jews of color come to mind — as characters or authors. “We’re invisible, pretty much,” he told JTA. As an African-American Orthodox rabbi, Rishon hopes to change that. He recently published a semi-autobiographical novel titled… Read more »