The queerness of love: A Jewish case for same-sex marriage

Published on January 24, 2013

Last year, I officiated at the first same-sex wedding in the 145-year history of my synagogue. For a Conservative congregation, this was quite a break with tradition.

An Encounter with God

By Ilana Angel
Published on May 3, 2012

Where to find cheap high holy day tickets [VIDEO]

By Jay Firestone
Published on September 4, 2009

Six self-help books seek to help you get sealed in the Book of Life

By Sandee Brawarsky
Published on September 21, 2006

Self-help books are essential tools.

Holy Moses—The Getty’s latest collection puts a Christian perspective on the leader, lawgiver and

By Tom L. Freudenheim
Published on September 14, 2006

The Getty Center's upcoming exhibition "Holy Image, Hallowed Ground: Icons from Sinai" (Nov. 14-March 4) provides a great opportunity to ponder these religious confluences, while also coming almost face-to-face with some of the earliest, and most beautiful, images in Christian art.

A Mother’s Pride

By Susan Freudenheim
Published on July 13, 2006

My daughter Rachel is a Jewish American girl from China. She is not the only Asian girl in her school -- there are three, all adopted (two from China, one from Vietnam) -- and she says she feels no different from anyone else. But among the mix of mostly Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews that make up our community, she adds a special spice. And in her own discreet style, I believe she has helped teach her friends to be colorblind in ways that could last a lifetime.

Holy Toledo!

By Beverly Gray
Published on January 5, 2006

Spain's Toledo contains -- along with spires, damascene jewelry and scrumptious marzipan -- a treasure trove of Jewish memories.

Digging In

By Mike Levy
Published on March 15, 2001

When Israeli archeologist Dr. Dan Bahat arrived in the United States early in February for a month of speaking engagements, he planned to talk to audiences about the history of the Temple Mount and the current state of archeological digs nearby.

On the Outside, Looking In

By Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky
Published on December 30, 1999

A bush that is on fire but doesn't burn is indeed a mysterious phenomenon. But arguably, there is a far more mysterious element in the story of God's commanding Moshe to go down to Egypt to the palace of Pharaoh.

PhotographyImages from the Territory of Belief

By Diane Arieff
Published on January 22, 1998

In the company of his friend, fellow world traveler and photographer Maxime du Camp, French novelist Gustave Flaubert visited Jerusalem in 1850. The urbane and sophisticated Flaubert was decidedly unimpressed with this crumbling backwater of the Ottoman Empire: "Jerusalem stands as a fortress; here the old religions silent rot away. One treads on dung; ruins surround you wherever your eyes wander -- a very sad and sorry picture."

That same year, a Rev. George Wilson Bridges also made his way tothe Holy City. An English cleric and an amateur photographer, Bridges and his young son traveled through Palestine as part of a seven-year journey around the Mediterranean and the East. Bridges undertook the journey as a form of solace: He had just buried his wife and daughter in Jamaica -- victims of a tropical fever they contracted while the reverend was there doing missionary work. Steeped as he was in grief and religious conviction, Bridges found that Jerusalem's atmosphere of melancholia and desolation suited him. "What sight," he observed after witnessing Jews praying at the Western Wall, "even in this wondrous city, so touching, so impressive as this -- Jews mourning the ruins of Jerusalem...."