Happy birthday, Israel The Weintraub Israel Center capped off Tucson Celebrates Israel Week with a family-friendly Yom Huledet L’Yisrael (Happy Birthday Israel) party at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on Sunday, May 15. The event included Israeli party games, party favors and birthday cake. Lag B’Omer… Read more »
A U.S. Army transport plane flies over the pyramids in Egypt in 1943. (Keystone/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — On the outskirts of Cairo, on a blistering hot afternoon in May 1942, British Army chaplain Rabbi Louis Rabinowitz ordered the driver of his military transport truck to pull over for a group of uniformed women who were hitchhiking. “We want to go as far as… 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 »
Pilgrims enjoying the Hiloula celebration at the El Ghriba Synagogue in Tunisia, May 2012. DJERBA, Tunisia (JTA) — Two thousand years ago, a mysterious woman who was unable to talk arrived on this island. Every sick person she touched was healed. Although she died when her wooden house caught fire, her body remained intact and did not burn. That’s a local legend. Another… Read more »
