For Jon Stewart, 9/11 ‘commemoration’ more about 9/13

Published on September 13, 2011

While perusing my Facebook wall this summer, I got word that a bunch of tickets to a taping of Comedy Central’s "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" was available for the taking. Fingers be nimble, I snapped them up.

MICHAEL JACKSON: Memories of my Childhood

Published on June 26, 2009

When I look back on my childhood, it is not an idyllic landscape of memories. My relationship with my father was strained, and my childhood was an emotionally difficult time for me. I began performing when I was five years old, and my father - a tough man - pushed my brothers and me hard, from the earliest age, to be the best performers we could be.

Finding the sacred in the mundane

By Amy Klein
Published on February 14, 2008

Now, following the latest publishing craze of themed Jewish anthologies comes "Bread and Fire: Jewish Women Find God in the Everyday" (Urim Publications, 2008), edited by Rivkah Slonim (with consulting editor Liz Rosenberg). The 400-page compilation features writings from 60 women on topics including modesty, faith, childbirth, prayer, family, community, feminism and, in one way or another, Orthodox Judaism.

Stories and essays and pictures illuminate holiday

By Sandee Brawarsky
Published on November 29, 2007

Books about Chanukah.

People of the Book Essay Contest

Published on November 8, 2007

As part of the American Jewish University's Celebration of Jewish Books Festival, students in first through 12th grade submitted essays answering the question: "Jews are the people of the book. What does that mean to you today?" The editorial staff of The Jewish Journal selected four winners -- one from each age group -- to receive a $250 Borders gift card, as well as a $1,000 donation to their school. We received hundreds of submissions in the form of stories, poems and artwork. It was a difficult decision, and the four winning essays below represent just a small sampling of the great work submitted.

Smarty Pants

By Abby Gilad
Published on October 14, 2004

Albert Einstein was a very smart man -- probably one of smartest people of all time.

For the Kids

By Abby Gilad
Published on October 23, 2003

There are a lot of new things in our lives.

American Identity

By Howard Kaplan
Published on March 20, 2003

Pride in American Jewish life, from the ivory towers to the country club greens, has centered on "Making It," as longtime Commentary Editor-in-Chief Norman Podhoretz unabashedly titled his 1968 memoir. More recently, popular oversized books like "Great Jewish Men" and "Great Jewish Women" adorn coffee tables and assure us that, though we disembarked from refugee ships, we have arrived. For the last 50 years, Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg has railed that we ought to busy ourselves less with how many of us sit in the Senate or nab Nobel Prizes -- and more with how many can read a page of Talmud. Hertzberg notes that Podhoretz's memoir includes not a single reference to the Holocaust and that we have "made it" to a better than 50 percent intermarriage rate.

Symbol of All Hopes

By Stuart Schoffman
Published on February 15, 2001

About 20 years ago the Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua wrote an essay called "Exile as a Neurotic Solution," in which he endeavored to explain why so many Diaspora Jews, for many centuries and in our own day, have avoided coming to live in the Land of Israel.

A Magical Season

Published on November 19, 1998

A typical seventh-grade essay might be about a soccer game, a trip to the mall or a favorite pet. But Mathew Rudes isn't a typical 12-year-old.