Tagged Judaism

SALT LAKE CITY (JTA) – Phyllis Miller’s experience growing up in Southern California wasn’t much different from that of many American Jews. The product of an intermarriage — her mother wasn’t Jewish but later converted — Miller’s family attended synagogue occasionally, kept the kids home from school on the High… Read more »

PORTO, Portugal (JTA) — Five years ago, this city’s tiny Jewish community was so strapped for cash it couldn’t afford to fix the deep cracks in its synagogue’s moldy ceiling. The Jewish Community of Porto was also too poor to hire a full-time rabbi because of its small size… Read more »

Rabbi Richard Address

Rabbi Richard F. Address, author of “Seekers of Meaning: Baby Boomers, Judaism, and the Pursuit of Healthy Aging,” will bring his quest to Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging on Tuesday, April 23. In a free public lecture at 7 p.m., Address — a baby boomer himself — will… 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 »

Mike Levin, seen here holding the Icelandic Jewish community's paper Torah scroll, once baked his own matzah for a Passover Seder because none was available in the country for purchase. (Alex Weisler)

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 »

Several months ago I asked a question in one of my columns and invited readers’ input. Answers came from all over the country and were as diverse as Jews are themselves. The question was originally posed to me by my 23-year-old daughter: What drives the Jews? In keeping with… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — With a tradition thousands of years old, Judaism informs us on taking the long view — the Divine view, as it were, since God is concerned even to the thousandth generation in the future (Exodus 34:7). So with environmental policy, we consider not only our own… Read more »