Religion & Jewish Life

In New York, Lost Tribes beer company resurrects ancient brews

The five co-founders of New York's Lost Tribes Brew (Courtesy Lost Tribes Brew)

The five co-founders of New York’s Lost Tribes Brew (Courtesy Lost Tribes Brew) NEW YORK (JTA) – As he weaves in and out of traffic in New York City on a Friday afternoon, David Itzkowitz has two things on his mind: Shabbat and beer. Beer because Itzkowitz, 26, is a co-founder… Read more »

Protestant churches’ letter on Israel straining ties with Jews

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When 15 prominent American Protestant leaders sent a letter to Congress last week calling for an investigation and possible suspension of U.S. aid to Israel, at least one outcome was certain: The Jews wouldn’t like it. Already, one major American Jewish group has canceled its participation… Read more »

In job search, older Jewish adults get help in overcoming challenges

Gordon Steen, 66, of Baltimore has been looking for a full-time job for six years. (Neil Rubin)

BALTIMORE (JTA) – After some 40 years in the business world, Gordon Steen never thought his morning would start outdoors with hyenas, elephants and monkeys. But that was more than six years ago, before he had closed his 17-year-old shipping and packing business. While contemplating his next career move,… Read more »

Jewish communities grapple with baby boomer retirement boom

BALTIMORE (JTA) – Every Jewish community wants more Raymonde Fiols among its active retirees. The question is whether those communities are prepared to meet the needs she and hundreds of thousands of “younger seniors” and older ones will have in the near future. Now 76, Fiol has resided in… Read more »

Man with a mission: Italian pianist revives music created in concentration camps

Dancers outside the 13th century Scolanova synagogues in Trani, during the Lech Lecha Jewish culture festival, September 2012. (Ruth Ellen Gruber)

TRANI, Italy (JTA) — Francesco Lotoro resurrects the music of the dead. Since 1991 the Italian pianist has traveled the globe to seek out and bring to light symphonies, songs, sonatas, operas, lullabies and even jazz riffs that were composed and often performed in Nazi-era concentration camps. “This music… Read more »

In Scandinavia, kipah becomes a symbol of defiance for Malmo’s Jews

Jews from Copenhagen and Malmo attending a Holocaust commermoration ceremony in Malmo's Jewish cemetary, Sept. 23, 2012. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

MALMO, Sweden (JTA) — Across Scandinavia, the kipah is becoming a symbol of Jewish defiance. On Sunday, about 70 Danish Jews took a double-decker bus from Copenhagen on a 10-mile bridge across the Strait of Øresund, on the Baltic Sea, to go to Malmo in a show of solidarity… Read more »

Siyum HaShas inspiring newcomers to daily Talmud study

BALTIMORE (JTA) – Watching coverage of the Siyum HaShas celebration in New Jersey this summer, Rabbi Ethan Linden said he wasn’t impressed by the spectacle of 90,000 Jews packed into a football stadium glorifying Talmud study. Rather, Linden said, he was impressed by the discipline: the daily learning of… Read more »

Yeshiva revolution

Shaul Stampfer, one of Israel’s foremost experts on Eastern European Jewry, is the most unlikely of iconoclasts. A thin, quiet, unassuming man, he gives the impression that he would have been happy as a simple melamed (elementary school teacher) in the shtetls he describes. He seems to revel in challenging common… Read more »

N.Y. Board of Health says Feh! to metzitzah b’peh

NEW YORK (JTA) — Orthodox groups expressed disappointment in the decision by the New York City Board of Health to require parental consent for a controversial circumcision ritual but gave no indication that they would mount legal challenges to the new regulation. On Sept. 13, the health department voted… Read more »

As French community grows in Israel, baguettes join pita

French citizens in Israel voting at the French consulate in Tel Aviv during the first round of a presidential election. April 22, 2012. (Gideon Markowicz/FLASH90)

NETANYA, Israel (JTA) — On a street off Independence Square, storefronts advertise “La Creperie Galette,” “Nouvel’hair” and “Agence Immobiliere.” Families lounging under parasols at cafe tables chat in French and enjoy a sunny afternoon, Nearby, the Mediterranean waves lap up against tranquil beaches. But in the local language, Independence… Read more »

Rabbinic ordination highlights contrasts for today’s German Jews

Left to right, Dayan Chanoch Ehrentreu and newly ordained Rabbis Dani Fabian, Reuven Konnik, Naftoly Surovtsev and Jonathan Konits, following their ordination ceremony at the Synagogue Community Center in Cologne, Germany, Sept. 13, 2012. (Photo by Uri Strauss)

(JTA) — For four men in Germany, this Jewish New Year will be like no other. It will be their first year as ordained rabbis, working to help build Jewish life in the very country that nearly succeeded in wiping out European Jewry. In ceremonies held Thursday at the… Read more »

Poland’s reviving Jewish communities come (way, way) out

Right to left: Jakob Staszevski, Tyson Herberger and Rebecca Herberger at Kalatowki Lodge in southern Poland, Sept. 6, 2012. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

ZAKOPANE, Poland (JTA) — In southern Polish woods, an unfamiliar blast alarms hikers and wildlife as it pierces the still of a misty morning. It has been a long time since a shofar echoed in these mountains. At the narrow end of the traditional Jewish horn are the puckered… Read more »

Latin America’s Jewish communities grow, confront challenges

Participants celebrating during services at the World Union for Progressive Judaism Conference of Jewish Communities in Buenos Aires, Argentina, August, 2012. (Diego Melamed)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — When the Sao Paulo Hebraica Sports Club and Community Center in Brazil opened the Aleph School earlier this month, it welcomed 450 students and had 120 more on the waiting list for next year. Hebraica, which is similar to an American Jewish community center,… Read more »

From under police protection, Europe’s Jewish gems try to shine

Martin Schultz, president of the European Parliament, speaking at the Great Synagogue of Europe in Brussels, March 2012. (Courtesy European Parliament)

BRUSSELS (JTA) — Under the gaze of a dozen police officers, a single file of Belgians forms outside the Great Synagogue of Europe. Waiting to enter the shul on its annual “open day” — when the synagogue throws open its doors to the public — many on this Sunday… Read more »

New Dutch translation of Talmud a tribute to Friesland’s nearly vanished Jews

Frisians in traditional garb celebrating Fisherman's Day in Harlingen, Aug. 31, 2012. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

LEEUWARDEN, Netherlands (JTA) – When Jacob Nathan de Leeuwe found himself returning nearly two decades ago from his home in a suburb of Amsterdam to this isolated idyll he calls “the end of the world,” it undoubtedly was the pull of his roots. De Leeuwe’s family had lived in… Read more »

Jews in the Bible Belt’s small towns face curiosity, ignorance

Rabbi Lynne Goldsmith, left, and her husband, Rob Goldsmith, in front of their synagogue, Temple Emanu-El of Dothan, Ala. (Rob Goldsmith)

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (JTA) — Sometimes, Benjamin Rosenthal thinks about leaving the small town of Indianola, Miss., pop. 11,000, where he spent most of his life. He wants to go somewhere bigger, with more Jews. “It’s very easy to lose your identity in the Bible Belt in a town when… Read more »

In the New Orleans area, a synagogue dedication, community rejuvenation and Orthodox-Reform bonds

Members of ZAKA rescuing a Torah from Congregation Beth Israel after Hurricane Katrina hit, August 2005. (Courtesy ZAKA)

(JTA) — Seven years ago an iconic picture for many Jews of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was of men waist deep in a flooded synagogue carrying Torahs to safety. On Sunday, in a celebration of physical and spiritual unity, the Torahs of that congregation were carried into… Read more »

Awareness of Ludwig Guttman, the ‘angel of the Paralympics,’ is undergoing a revival

Portrait of Sir Ludwig Guttman, founder of the Paralympic Games (Photo via Stoke Mandeville)

LONDON (JTA) — In 1917, Ludwig Guttmann, a young German Jew volunteering as an orderly in the local Accident Hospital for Coalminers, came across a strong miner with a broken back. The patient, he was told, would be dead within three months. In fact, he died after five weeks.… Read more »