Religion & Jewish Life

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… Read more »

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)

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… Read more »

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

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… Read more »

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)

(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… Read more »

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)

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… Read more »

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)

(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… Read more »

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

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… Read more »

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… Read more »

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

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… Read more »

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Southern Jewish Life) — “Are you still a bigot?” Every year for the rest of his life, students studying the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” would call Rabbi Milton Grafman, knowing little of the situation in 1963 Birmingham, and pose that question. His… Read more »

Phyllis Fields, second from right, during a 1989 family trip to Hawaii. (Courtesy Fields family)

The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA) – Earlier this month, a “Seeking Kin” column concluded with Rozanne Dittersdorf of New York expressing hope that Phyllis Garfunkel, a childhood friend with whom she lost contact in the late 1940s, “found happiness over… Read more »

A scene from internment by Wolfgang Gerson, watercolor on toilet paper, from Camp N in Sherbrooke, Quebec, circa 1940-1942. Gerson painted on whatever he could due to the scarcity of paper. (Courtesy the Gerson family/Photo by Jessica Bushey)

VANCOUVER, Canada (JTA) — When Austrian and German Jews escaped Nazism by fleeing to Britain during the 1930s, the last thing they expected was to find themselves prisoners in Canada, interned in camps with some of the same Nazis they had tried to escape back home. But that’s what… Read more »

Thessaloniki Mayor Yiannis Boutaris, third from left, leading the march in his city from Liberty Square to the Old Railway Station, March 2013. (Michael Thaidigsmann/WJC)

THESSALONIKI, Greece (JTA) — Antonis Samaras stood in the pale morning light coming through the stained glass windows of the only Thessaloniki synagogue to survive World War II and vowed, “Never again.” For Greek Jews marking the 70th anniversary of the destruction of this city’s historic Jewish community, the… Read more »

Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter appears on a hologram-like interactive presentation developed by the USC Shoah Foundation. (USC Institute for Creative Technology)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — In a dark glass building here, Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter shows that his memory is crystal clear and his voice is strong. His responses seem a bit delayed — not that different from other survivors I have known who are reluctant to speak openly about… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — As of 2012, one in 20 Americans is identifying themselves as an atheist, agnostic or unbeliever. According to the research done by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released last year, nearly 33 million Americans list themselves with no religious affiliation. While it’s… Read more »

THESSALONIKI, Greece (JTA) — It was spring in northern Greece, 1943. Efthymios Kontopoulos, 13, had come to Thessaloniki for the day when he saw Nazis rounding up the city’s Jews. “My father brought me into town,” Kontopoulos, who is not Jewish, said. “We saw them being taken away. They… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Trying to interest teenagers in activities is difficult, parents and teachers know well, especially given what technology has done to the attention spans of young people. So how to get them to partake in doing Jewish over other pursuits? The Jim Joseph Foundation commissioned two… Read more »

The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA) – Recalling her childhood friendship with the girl across the street fills Rozanne Dittersdorf with immense sadness but also deep gratitude. More than six decades later, the pain her friend evinced still brings Dittersdorf to… Read more »

Francine Hermelin Levite and Edgar Bronfman have been using unique versions of the Passover haggadah for years. Now both have decided to publish their versions of the Exodus story. Hermelin Levite, 43, the mother of three school-aged children, is the author of “My Haggadah: Made it Myself,” (http://madeitmyselfbooks.com), an… Read more »

Chevra Ahavas Yisroel, a new synagogue in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn shown here celebrating 2013 Purim, is breaking down stereotypes within the Chabad Community. (Courtesy Chevra Ahavas Yisroel)

NEW YORK (JTA) — On a freezing Friday night in Brooklyn, a group of 18 Crown Heights residents scurry through the crowds of Jews leaving synagogue and make their way to a second-story apartment on Rogers Avenue for Shabbat dinner. Inside, hippie art and vintage John Lennon photos share… Read more »