- NEWS & COMMENTARY
Cleveland kidnappings: We must be our brother’s keeper
The exterior of the house where three women who had disappeared as teenagers approximately ten years ago were found alive on May 7 in Cleveland, Ohio. Photo by Pugliano/Getty Images
7 Rules for Perfect Hummus
When was the last time you opened a tub of hummus and swooned? When was the last time a restaurant put a plate of hummus in front of you, and you said, “Oh my God.” Most of the hummus recipes…
Palestinians mark Nakba with West Bank protests
Thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank marked the 65th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, which they call the “catastrophe,” with marches and protests.
- HOLLYWOOD
The Office’s best Jewish moment
Funny music, sad life
On an otherwise unremarkable day in 1938, a chubby but charming student at John Burroughs Junior High in Los Angeles “cracked the code of his comic gift and discovered his…
Filmmakers reveal magician’s secretive world
A British journalist recalls how she once sat down at a cafe with the legendary magician, author, historian, actor and, perhaps, the greatest sleight-of-hand artist on the planet in the documentary…
- LIFE & CULTURE
7 Rules for Perfect Hummus
When was the last time you opened a tub of hummus and swooned? When was the last time a restaurant put a plate of hummus in front of you, and…
Survivor: Irene Rosenberg
“Mommy, I’ll be right back.” Irene Rosenberg — then Irene Grunfeld — said as she was leaving the apartment of her cousin Mancy Weiss, where she and her mother were…
The Divine Wedding and Kiss - Parashat Naso
“O for your kiss! For your love / More enticing than wine, / For your scent and sweet name – For all this they love you. Take me away to…
- BLOGS
What would my Israeli grandmother think?
When I hear about the latest events in Israel – the air strikes on weapons facilities in Syria, the flare-ups over women donning prayer shawls at the Western Wall –…
A hot topic, a great panel, and chance to learn and discuss—immigration at issue
It's a critical time for immigration reform in this country. Washington is getting set to make major changes, the likes of which haven't been seen since the 1980's under President…
State 194: A Documentary About Palestine
Opening this weekend at Laemmle’s Music Hall 3 is a very hot-button new documentary called State 194, which follows the recent history of Palestine. Many will approach this film with…
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When Saying Nothing is Worse Than Saying “No!”
G-d is pissed! A Shameful Way to Treat Our Dead!
In Each Generation…
What we need now: Jewish leadership driven by ethical imperatives
Steipler Rav & Kapishnitzer Rebbe - Loving Family through Acts of Kindness
A Blessing for Hitler? May His Memory Be Eradicated
Where’s the Passover story?
It's one of the great mysteries of the Jewish tradition. Every year, Jews around the world gather around a seder table to retell the story of our people's liberation from slavery. You can read a thousand articles, talk to a thousand rabbis, and they'll all say the same thing: At the Passover seder, we retell the story of the Exodus.
There's only one problem with this statement: It's not really true.
New haggadahs bring fresh approaches to celebration
This season, several new haggadahs raise new questions. New interpretations bring new approaches to the seder, enabling readers and participants to bring new layers of meaning to their own celebrations of the holiday.
David’s the singer, he’s the rapper
Oded Turgeman, director of the new short film "Song of David," doesn't do things the easy way.
Cry of the Leper
Parshat Tazria (Leviticus 12:1-13:59)
There comes a time, for each of us, when we stand face to face with our demons; it is in our response to this challenge that we often see some of the more beautiful moments in human life. In this week's parsha, Tazria, we find one of those opportunities.
The human touch of Harold Kushner
At 72, Rabbi Harold Kushner, the best-selling author of "When Bad Things Happen to Good People," leads a life that most of his rabbinic colleagues can only dream of. But the author of more than a half-dozen books, several of them best sellers, is not without regrets -- a topic he addresses in his most recent book, "Overcoming Life's Disappointments," published in 2006.
Yesterday’s Ashes
Parshat Tzav (Leviticus 6:1-8:36)
Where shall we leave our precious emotional and spiritual possessions that don't work anymore? Maimonides says this about the ashes of the sacrifice: "Even though removing the ashes is not formally worship, they should not be carried by a person who is ineligible to serve. They should be taken outside ...
Advertise joys of Judaism to others during simcha
Given the condition of Judaism in 2008, a bar mitzvah is an ecumenical stew. It's not only the non-Jews who wonder about the significance and meaning of the ceremony, but even some of our fellow Israelites stare with wonder and, sometimes, awe.That's why a booklet of origins, explanations and exegesis is useful.
Identity and connection spur more adult b’nai mitzvah
The reasons why milifers and seniors have gravitated to adult b'nai mitzvah programs since the trend first took off in the 1970s are numerous, including the fact that most women didn't have such ceremonies until the 1980s (the first bat mitzvah was held in 1922). One perennial influence is a child or grandchild reaching b'nai mitzvah age, and the divergent issues brought about by intermarriage can sometimes compel one or more adults in a family to take on b'nai mitzvah study to serve as a role model.
Finding the sacred in the mundane
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.
But Mom, I don’t want a bar mitzvah!
I saw the blinking light on my answering machine and listened to the frantic voice of my girlfriend, Debbie, as I put the groceries away.
"Heeeeeelp! Jason says he doesn't want to do his bar mitzvah anymore. We've got the date and the place, I've hired the DJ and he's already begun to prepare. He's making me crazy. What should I do? Call me."
Wow, what a bummer, I thought to myself.
‘Mixed’ marriages lose stigma among Iranians
If Arash Saghian's recent marriage had taken place in the late 1980s or early 1990s, he would likely have faced ostracism from Los Angeles' Iranian Jewish community. The family of the 25-year-old businessman might have also frowned upon the match, all because his spouse Maya was Ashkenazi.
In search of . . . Chanukah gelt
But what is the real origin of gelt? Is it, as my father claimed, really a long-held Jewish custom? And how did gelt evolve from money to chocolate? And why does the chocolate taste so waxy? If gelt is here to stay -- if it's going to really represent the Jews like mistletoe and holly do the Christians -- are there any better options than the molten coins of our childhood? These are some of the questions I had as I set out on my journey in search of gelt.
Eight ways to <font color = 'green'>help heal the Earth</font> on Chanukah
There are three levels of wisdom through which Chanukah invites us to address the planetary dangers of the global climate crisis -- what some of us call "global scorching," because "warming" seems so pleasant, so comforting. We can encode these three teachings into actions we take to heal the earth each of the eight days.
Right or Righteous?
There is a modern-day term for the inability to admit wrongdoing: sociopathy. A conscience that cannot feel guilt is capable of untold evil. An ability to look critically at ourselves, to see where we are wrong, is the beginning of making things right. Being right -- in the narrow sense of "correct" -- amounts to very little, if a correct position isn't also righteous. Joseph is correct in interpreting his dreams of domination and superiority to his family, but he is also insensitive and inflammatory. He is right again, according to midrash, in what he tells his father about his brothers' bad behavior. But in Jewish law, unlike American, truth is not a defense against defamation. Accuracy is not piety.
Family’s tale recounts Libyan Jewish dispersion
The opening line from the documentary "The Last Jews of Libya" begins a nostalgic visit to an ill-fated community of 25,000 people living between the Mediterranean Sea and North African desert at the dawn of World War II. It's a story we know too well -- pious, successful and family-oriented Jews living in coexistence with their neighbors suddenly become targets of racial hatred and are ultimately expelled or destroyed. Once in the United States, the immigrants struggle to find their place within an American Jewish life rooted firmly in Eastern European culture.
Individual choice challenges communal commitments
The principal authority for contemporary American Jews, in the absence of compelling religious norms and communal loyalties, has become the sovereign self. Each person now performs the labor of fashioning his or her own self, pulling together elements from the various Jewish and non-Jewish repertoires available rather than stepping into an "inescapable framework" of identity -- familial, communal, traditional -- given at birth. Decisions about ritual observance and involvement in Jewish institutions are made and made again, considered and reconsidered, year by year, and even week by week. American Jews speak of their lives, and of their Jewish beliefs and commitments, as a journey of ongoing questioning and development. They avoid the language of arrival. There are no final answers, no irrevocable commitments.
Authors explain Jewish influences on their works
The Jewish Journal invited writers who will be featured at Sunday's Festival of Books to answer the simple, essential question that every Jewish writer is often asked: "What Jewish sources -- ideas, writings, traditions -- inspire you, and how do they show up in your work?" The following show that there is no easy answer to what defines a Jewish author, but there is no question that there's much to draw upon within the faith.
Tikkun for which olam?
f you want to be popular in the Jewish world today, just say tikkun olam. Everywhere you go it seems that Jews of all stripes are jumping on this universal bandwagon. Recently, in one day, I got to experience three different views of tikkun olam. The last view was so politically incorrect, it was almost embarrassing.
We have the right to an indivisible Jerusalem
Rabbi Dov Fischer responds to Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky's invitation to have a conversation about Jerusalem.
Crocs rule as Yom Kippur shoe
From secular beachgoers in Tel Aviv to right-wing Orthodox settlers in Hebron, Crocs -- the bulbous-toed, open-back, rubber summer shoe -- already were ubiquitous in Israel. Now, reports from several synagogues across America suggest, Crocs have surpassed Chuck Taylors, Keds, flip-flops and a host of other options to become the Yom Kippur shoe in the United States.
Women’s commentary offers alternative take on Torah
As Cantor Sarah J. Sager began her research, she found there were many people -- both women and men -- who were thinking about the silence of women in the Jewish tradition, and working to create "a sense of women's presence at the most important moments of our history and in our most sacred text," Sager later wrote. But there was no one place to find all that commentary. Fifteen years later, the WRJ is publishing "The Torah: A Women's Commentary," edited by Tamara Cohn Eskenazi, a professor at the Los Angeles branch of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.
Sukkot Man
Either you know what it is to sit outdoors under a sukkah on a cool autumn night, surrounded by family and friends, feasting on traditional Sukkot foods, laughing and singing as if it were summer camp all over, or you don't.
A Gift Ignored
The Master of the Universe has given us a gift that can connect us to the spiritual world, the one that exists beyond our physical reality. That gift is music, yet, sadly, most synagogues ignore the spiritual power of highly organized art music, the form many refer to as "classical music."
Chart a new course with these spiritual guides for the New Year
As we think about rewriting our personal narratives in the New Year, adding new pages and chapters, several new books inspire new visions, renewed creativity and new relationships between the calendar and a sense of holiness.
Kids slip into reading and cozy up with PJ Library
The High Holy Days can be a confusing time for children. It's not easy for them to understand the sense behind the story of a father who almost sacrifices his son or how a chicken can help take away sins. Luckily, the answers to these mysteries and many more can be found in a book -- and thanks to the Harold Grinspoon Foundation's PJ Library (as in pajamas), parents around the country are getting those books for free.
Agnon puts ‘awe’ in services with inspiring anthology
I am not sure how your rabbi would react if you sat in the pews reading T.S. Eliot or William Faulkner, but if you were found poring over the pages of 1966 Nobel Laureate S.Y. Agnon's "Days of Awe," originally published in Hebrew as "Yamim Noraim," I trust most rabbis would happily approve. So would Agnon. In his introduction, Agnon states that he created this book so that one may read it "between prayers," as a way of intensifying one's spiritual experience during the High Holy Days.
Locals push to expand social action and justice efforts
Helping others and bettering the community -- "healing the world," as tikkun olam translates from Hebrew -- are ancient themes in Judaism. This has most commonly been done through social action -- planned events like feeding the homeless, visiting the elderly and cleaning up a neighborhood. But in the past few years, there has been an explosion among American Jewry, particularly within the Reform movement, to do more than just treat a symptom.
Commemorating Tisha B’Av—what to do?
We are a people who have suffered enormously. Given our experience with suffering and its regular inclusion in our calendar, Tisha B'Av ought to be easy to commemorate. But it is set at a time when we are most disinclined to mourn. Thus, Tisha B'Av becomes the most challenging day in the Jewish year, the one whose spirit is hardest to feel.
Books: Reimagining the future of the Jewish People
"Now, once again, a group of gifted scholars gather to reinterpret the Jewish project, to reassert its meaning, re-envision its institutions and reimagine its future," asserts the introduction of the new book: "Jews and Judaism in the 21st Century: Human Responsibility, the Presence of God and the Future of the Covenant," edited by Valley Beth Shalom's (VBS) Rabbi Edward Feinstein (Jewish Lights Publishing, $24.99).
Biblical Davening
As I reflected later on my Yemenite moment in time, I couldn't help but think of all the traditions that so many Jewish communities throughout the world are fighting to maintain. There are countless variations of Ashkenazic and Sephardic traditions that have their own melodies, their own chants, their own ways. We all read the same words, but after that, we're allowed to tweak. It's as if God gave us the consonants, and then said: "Have fun with the vowels."
Cheese for Shavuot wrapped in tradition and variety
Since then I've been relegated to eating blintzes at delis, where they've been decent but far from sensational. However, with Shavuot approaching, a craving for Bertha's blintzes drove me to replicate the nirvana of that first experience.
Got Shavuot?
But unlike Rosh Hashanah -- which has the irresistible attraction of a new year and a new beginning -- and other holidays that have their own attractions, Shavuot seems to miss that special sizzle that could engage mainstream Judaism.
Jewish tradition says safety trumps privacy when it comes to mental health
Jewish law considers mental illness as serious and real as physical illness, says Rabbi Elliot Dorff, professor of philosophy and co-chair of the bio-ethics department at the American Jewish University (formerly University of Judaism), with an accompanying obligation of treatment.
The seder offers 15 steps toward empowerment
Fifteen steps or ritual components make up the Passover seder. Knowing that in advance can empower your guests and everyone else gathered around the dinner table. Most haggadot list the 15 steps at the beginning of the text. Think of it as a key, or GPS, to help you navigate through this age-old tradition. In our home, we sing the 15 steps together, repeating them up to the ritual section being observed until we've completed all 15 parts.
Deliverance
Many, many years ago, in order to impress a young woman, I volunteered to make chicken soup for her Passover seder.
A Place at the Table
Has the Passover seder become a glorified Jewish meal or rote obligatory ritual, and is there a message here? Even in the realm of traditional recipes, too many of our young have not been taught to create the Passover experience or replicate the foods of past generations. The next generation needs to accept the responsibility of passing on the lesson or it dies with us.
Matchmaker, Look Through Your Book
It seems the Jewish tradition of matchmaking is alive and well these days, as two very different Jewish novels on matchmaking come to us just in time for Valentine's Day.
"Seven Blessings" by Ruchama King (St. Martin's Press, 2003) is out in paperback, and focuses on the Orthodox Jewish community, specifically American and Canadian ba'alei teshuvah living in Jerusalem.
No. 2, "Matchbook: The Diary of a Modern-Day Matchmaker" by Samantha Daniels was released in hardcover this month. Daniels' story centers on the trials of a single Jewish matchmaker whose clients are single New Yorkers -- both Jewish and non-Jewish.
Single Woman of Valor
I am a woman of valor.
But nobody is singing my weekly praises. Oh no, that's saved for the same lucky women who get the
Pottery Barn registry, the rock on their hand and a man in their bed.
According to Jewish tradition, every Shabbat, a husband sings "Eshet Chayil" -- "A Woman of Valor" (WOV) -- to his wife. This Friday night, I listened as my friend, Dan, told his wife, Jen, "Her price is far above rubies ... she's robed in strength and dignity, and cheerfully faces whatever may come." All true.
Day School for Reform Jews, Too
The idea that a significant number of American Jewish children would come to attend Jewish day schools would have seemed unimaginable no more than 40 years ago, and the notion that thousands from Reform Jewish homes would attend such schools would have seemed even more fantastic. After all, the public school was the major institution that facilitated the entry of upwardly mobile immigrant Jews and their children into American life throughout the major part of the 20th century.
It’s Time to Change
The oldest and most primitive human dates back about 7 million years, according to a skull found by scientists in Central Africa.
"That's so depressing," I say to my husband, Larry. "I can't believe that in 7 million years we haven't evolved any further than this."
"This" being a world in which half the people live on less than $2 a day; in which 1 billion people go to bed hungry every night; in which 115 million children never go to school at all; and in which 27 million people live in some kind of slavery.
"You're looking at this all wrong," Larry assures me. "Seven million years is an insignificant blip in the history of the cosmos."
And, Jewish tradition tells me, the first 6,994,235 years hardly count.
In Sickness and in Taffeta
As a woman prepares to say "I do," her friends prepare to stand by her side in purple puffy dresses and lavender dyed shoes. In sickness and in health, in velour and in taffeta, in chartreuse and in lemon. As her bridesmaids, they will participate in a tradition that may be as old as Judaism itself.
Irwin Goldenberg,
Irwin Goldenberg, Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles past president and an active community leader, died on March 20. He was 85.
Severe Financial Crisis Hits Metivta
Metivta, A Center for Contemplative Judaism, went into emergency survival mode late last month after the board discovered the organization was out of funds.
"The board is looking intensely at our budget and trying to pare down costs to the absolute minimum to give us a chance to survive for the next couple of months, while our board and community determine what is Metivta's future, where we will go and what is our restated mission," said Lyle Poncher, Metivta board chairman.
Metivta is an organization dedicated to seeking spirituality in the Jewish tradition through meditation, text study and spiritual practices.
Passing The Bar… Again
Some things are just better the second time around. For some, it's marriage. For others, it's childbirth or career. For Mel Guthman, a member of Kehillat Israel in Pacific Palisades, this was the case with his bar mitzvah -- and well worth the 70-year wait.
Chametz 101
In the dark of night, guided only by a slight illumination, we search the house. Carefully, we stride from room to room, investigating corners, checking furniture, examining windowsills. Finally, the search is complete: 'Tis the night before Pesach, and all the chametz (leavened food) has been swept away.
Contemporary Commandments
There is little doubt that Aseret Ha-dibrot, the Ten Commandments, form the centerpiece of Parshat Yitro and probably the entire Torah.
A Message From David Wolpe
It's a well-known fact that millions of Jews have doubts about the literal veracity of Bible stories. On April 8, 9 and 15, I gave a series of sermons that emphasized the following point: faith is independent of doubt. I wanted the millions of doubting Jews to know that they can still be faithful Jews and live a life of meaning and mitzvahs.
Free Hebrew School
People insist that there's no such thing as a free lunch. But HaShalom, a small Sephardic Orthodox congregation in the Pico-Robertson area, is offering local public school children exactly that. When students in grades K-8 arrive at HaShalom at the end of their secular school day, they enjoy a hot meal, courtesy of Haifa Restaurant. And along with the food, they receive, absolutely free, classes in Hebrew and Jewish tradition.
Education Briefs
A highlight of the annual religious school educators conference sponsored by the Bureau of Jewish Education is always the presentation of the Lainer Awards. These cash awards, established in 1989, go to talented educators who help perpetuate Jewish traditions and values in a religious school setting. Most of the winners have an in-depth knowledge of Judaica, and have committed much of their professional lives to Jewish institutions.
Double Duty
A highlight of the annual religious school educators conference sponsored by the Bureau of Jewish Education is always the presentation of the Lainer Awards. These cash awards, established in 1989, go to talented educators who help perpetuate Jewish traditions and values in a religious school setting. Most of the winners have an in-depth knowledge of Judaica, and have committed much of their professional lives to Jewish institutions.
Such is the case of Neal
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