NEW YORK (JTA) — Could the 7 billionth person on the planet be Jewish? According to the United Nations Population Fund, the Earth welcomed its 7 billionth resident on Oct. 31. Statistically, the newborn was most likely a boy in India or China. The symbolic title was given to Danica… Read more »
Religion & Jewish Life
Sex segregation spreads among the Orthodox
NEW YORK (Forward) — When a recent online expose revealed that women on a New York City-franchised bus were required to sit in the back, those who seemed to be least outraged were the women who actually ride the bus and live in the two heavily Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhoods… Read more »
From the beginning, it was clear Kristallnacht was different
NEW YORK (JTA) — Before it was called Kristallnacht, it was known simply as “the pogrom.” Designated “the night of broken glass,” the 14-hour wave of Nazi violence on Nov. 9-10, 1938 left hundreds of Jewish storefronts and synagogues across Germany and parts of Austria in shards and splinters,… Read more »
From soldier to rabbi, one Afghanistan war veteran takes unusual path
BALTIMORE, Md. (JTA) — When West Point’s Jewish chaplain left the academy during Joshua Knobel’s freshman year, Knobel filled in for him, running Jewish prayer services at the military school’s chapel. In the years following his 2001 graduation, Knobel led services more than 6,000 miles east while deployed in… Read more »
Top 10 Jewish apps
Version Jew.0 Is your Yiddish rusty? Want to whip up a kosher culinary masterpiece? Trying to remember which prayer to say as you cast off your sins on Rosh Hashanah? Don’t worry—there’s an app for it! Oy! Ever wonder when it’s OK to toss out an “oy”? The opportunities,… Read more »
Scott Shay wants you to recharge your mitzvah — every 18 years
NEW YORK (JTA) — Remember that 2009 episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” when as part of a plot to coax Michael “Kramer” Richards to go along with a “Seinfeld” reunion, Larry David’s African-American housemate, Leon Black, pretends to be the Jewish accountant Danny Duberstein? To sell the cover story,… Read more »
‘Pay to Pray’ blues
(Jewish Ideas Daily) — In the middle decades of the 20th century they were called “mushroom synagogues.” They popped up in the waning days of summer to provide High Holidays services, then disappeared at the conclusion of Yom Kippur. Today, “mushroom synagogues” are again in vogue — but with… Read more »
Another Soros steps out
NEW YORK (N.Y. Jewish Week) — Alexander Soros — what a catch! And not just for the obvious reason. Sure, papa George is worth $22 billion, and as your bubbe says, it’s as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one. But any grandmotherly… Read more »
Rebranding Tzedakah: From charity to sacred spending
(Sh’ma) — The third paragraph of birkat hamazon, the prayer after eating, presents an odd conflation of concerns. Opening with a petition for divine mercy toward Israel, its people, capital, temple and monarchy, the prayer veers into an anxious plea to escape material dependence on other mortals: “Do not… Read more »
In Columbia, man fulfills a 50-year-old pledge to honor his brother
SAN FRANCISCO (j. weekly) — In August, Gordon Radley tossed stones from Jerusalem over a muddy ridge in Colombia, scattered dirt from the family’s cemetery plot and recited the Jewish memorial prayer. In doing so, he kept a promise made 50 years earlier to honor the memory of his… Read more »
New genetic evidence links Spanish Americans of Southwest to Jews
NEW YORK (JTA) — In 1995, Demetrio Valdez, his wife, Olive, and some of their neighbors in Conjehos County, Colo., started a kosher food co-op. “We wanted to harvest our own meat, but we couldn’t get a good price for it, so we decided to do it kosher to… Read more »
Finding Jewish leadership in far-flung Iceland
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (JTA) — For Mike Levin, a native of Chicago, it took a move to Iceland to turn him into a Jewish leader. More than 25 years ago, Levin met an Icelandic woman while both were studying music at a university in Vienna. They married soon after, moved… Read more »
Ethiopian aliyah hindered by overload of Israeli absorption centers
MEVASSERET ZION, Israel (JTA) — It’s a typical Friday morning in Israel’s largest absorption center: A handful of local residents, all immigrants from Ethiopia, mill about examining wares for sale at a small, unofficial souk. Located in Mevasseret Zion, a town just outside Jerusalem, the center has become more… Read more »
Should my sukkah have a debt ceiling?
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Each Sukkot we read in Kohelet, Ecclesiastes, that there “is a time to tear down, and a time to build up.” For my sukkah it was time for both. Last year the legs of my sukkah were bowed and its roof supports looked flimsy. This… Read more »
School battle escalates religious clash in Jerusalem suburb
BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (JTA) — This time it started with cries of “Sluts!” and “Shiksas!” and the throwing of eggs and bags of excrement at young girls who attend a recently opened Modern Orthodox elementary school in this Jerusalem suburb. The assailants: religious extremists from the haredi Orthodox neighborhood… Read more »
In Iceland, tiny Jewish community celebrates new beginnings
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (JTA) — Nearly half an hour after Rosh Hashanah services were set to begin, the congregation in this chilly city still was one man short of a minyan. But as the small group of Jewish expats and their Icelandic spouses mingled and waited, no one complained. After… Read more »
The Jewish Zen of Steve Jobs
WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (JTA) — Social networking sites began buzzing immediately after word spread of the death of Apple Inc. visionary Steve Jobs Wednesday evening. Rabbis took time out of their busy preparations for Yom Kippur to halt their sermon writing and post personal reflections on what the contributions of… Read more »
Luscious Sukkot desserts make most of seasonal fruits
While most people equate Sukkot with autumn vegetables, I picture the holiday as a tea party. Among Jews who build sukkot (huts), the evening meal is the most popular time to gather inside these modern-day harvest huts, but I much prefer spending afternoon hours inside a sukkah with a… Read more »
Kosher BBQ competition is a hit among Jews — and some Muslims, too
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (JTA) — If there’s anything that can bring the Jews of Tennessee together, it would be barbecue. Earlier this month, the 23rd annual Kosher BBQ Contest and Festival drew thousands of Jews from Tennessee and around the country. It attracted a group of Muslims, too. Turns out… Read more »
Retracing Herzl’s footsteps in Europe, Israelis find Diaspora life has much to offer
BUDAPEST, Hungary (JTA) — Sometimes it takes a Zionist organization to show Israeli Jews that Israel isn’t the only place where Jews have a future. At least that’s what the World Zionist Organization and Habonim Dror, the labor Zionist youth organization, managed to do with a whirlwind trip this… Read more »