Tagged Torah

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Designing a new emoji is not simple. Sefaria, the online free Jewish library, has found this out in recent months. The organization wanted to reach more and younger people, to get them to use the resources on its website. They thought that a Torah emoji would… Read more »

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (JTA) — Danish Jews celebrated their community’s rescue 75 years ago in a ceremony Thursday at the country’s main synagogue, the packed sanctuary filled with dozens of survivors and luminaries. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin was among those on hand at the Great Synagogue of Copenhagen, joining Crown… Read more »

One family after another hurried through Erin Jones-Avni’s front door, anxious to get their first glimpse of the new arrival — to admire its ornate silver breastplate and touch its satiny mantle. “People just kept coming, and they’d make a beeline for the Torah,” she told JTA from her… Read more »

Benzion Shemtov

I would like to share with you a thought on a mitzvah that recently took on a particularly dear meaning to me. As my daughter turns 3 years of age today, she begins to light her very own Shabbos candle, brightening the world each Friday evening. Married women have… Read more »

  (JTA) — The festival of Shavuot, which begins at sundown May 30, focuses on Moses receiving the tablets of the law. But an even more fascinating part of the story is when he shatters them. In an astounding midrash, or rabbinic commentary, Moses’ act is portrayed as the epitome of loyalty… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Do you experience feelings of peace and well-being at least once a week? Did God write the Torah? Do you eat bacon? If these questions seem a little personal, don’t fret. They’re all part of a new Pew Research Center survey on American religion released… Read more »

For beginners seeking their place in the Torah scroll, a tikkun, or guidebook, provides an excellent navigational tool. (Edmon J. Rodman)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — On Shavuot, we celebrate being given the Five Books of Moses by opening the gift and reading from the scroll. But first we need to find the place. How do we find our place in the Torah? Newbies to the ways of a Torah scroll… Read more »

Left to right, the final issue of the "Ultimate Spider-Man" featuring Peter Parker and the first issue featuring Miles Morales. (Courtesy Marvel Comics)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Spiderman heroically dispatched countless foes since he arrived on the scene in 1962. Nearly a half-century later, Brian Michael Bendis managed to kill him. In 2000, Bendis was hired to write Ultimate Spiderman, a modern-day retelling of the classic Spiderman story. More than 10 years, 160… Read more »

(Jewish Ideas Daily) — Since the news of the Newtown massacre and its heartbreaking aftermath, an extraordinary talmudic passage has been reverberating in my mind. In answer to the speculative theological question of what occupies God all day, the Talmud, as interpreted by Rashi, declares that “there are twelve… Read more »

At Mazel Academy in Brooklyn, Torah scrolls were unrolled to dry after being damaged by the floodwaters from Hurricane Sandy, Oct. 31, 2012. (Ben Harris)

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Rabbi Avremel Okonov arrived Tuesday morning at the school he co-founded 10 years ago in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, the water in the basement had already receded from the high water mark. It only came up to his knees. Everywhere he looked… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Cooking has been a passion for me, and passing on my knowledge and experience to a new kosher audience one of my greatest joys. When my two earlier books were published — “Kosher Cuisine” and “Helen Nash’s Kosher Kitchen” — that joy was mingled with… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Unlike other Jewish holidays, the Torah does not specify a date for Shavuot; it is celebrated on the 50th day (seven weeks) after Passover. We moderns celebrate Shavuot on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan; in ancient times, when the first day of… Read more »

Some 40,000 haredi Orthodox men filled Citi Field in New York to rally against the dangers of the Internet, May 20, 2012. (Ben Sales)

NEW YORK (JTA) — The sellout crowd that filled Citi Field on Sunday night wore black and white, not the New York Mets’ blue and orange. And instead of jeering the Philadelphia Phillies or Atlanta Braves, they faced a foe that was, to hear them talk about it, far… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Observing my kids playing, I notice how the same toy, no matter how many times they play with it, can reveal the most remarkable things. My daughter, with the vocabulary befitting a 1 1/2-year-old, will bring her ball over to me and point to a… Read more »

President Barack Obama participates in an interview with Robin Roberts of ABC's "Good Morning America," in the Cabinet Room of the White House, May 9, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As soon as President Obama wrapped up the television interview in which he endorsed same-sex marriage, he called an evangelical minister who advises him to offer a heads up. Jack Lew, the White House chief of staff, made a similar call to the Orthodox Union. The… Read more »

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (JTA) — A few months after my first child was born, I went to a bookstore to buy a few books that I thought needed to be on the bookshelf of my new baby’s nursery. Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” was one of those… Read more »

Josh Breitzer, left, is invested as a cantor by Rabbi David Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. (Photo Courtesy HUC-JIR)

(JTA) — What’s the difference between investiture and ordination? Plenty, say officials at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, which has announced that for the first time since establishing its cantorial school in 1948, it will ordain rather than invest its graduating class of cantors. Six… Read more »

In his video for the song "HYFR," Drake re-creates his Bar Mitzvah -- sort of. (cash Money Records/Youtube)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Thanks to hip-hop superstar Drake’s latest music video, there are now far more eyes focusing on Temple Israel’s bimah than there are even during the High Holidays. And even though the song’s lyrics are decidedly more profane than sacred, the Reform synagogue’s president said he hoped… Read more »

It's Seder time in Utah in the Passover in the Desert of Moab program. (Jeff Finkelstein)

MOAB, Utah (JTA) — How do you open the door for Elijah when your Seder is outdoors in the middle of the Utah desert? That was one of the challenges facing the 260 people who came from all parts of the country to participate in the fifth annual Adventure… Read more »

Shlomo Fuchs, a haredi Israeli accused of harassing a female soldier for her refusal to move to the back of a bus, is released on bail in Jerusalem, Dec. 30, 2011. (Miriam Alster/Flash 90/JTA)

(JTA) — The cascade of condemnations started pouring in almost as soon as the Israeli TV report aired. It’s subject was  an 8-year-old girl harassed by haredi men on the way to her Modern Orthodox girls’ school in the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Shemesh. The Israeli prime minister and… Read more »