Leo Baeck’s community of elders bridges the generation gap

By Rachel Heller
Published on May 24, 2011

About 40 seniors gathered in a sunny community room at Leo Baeck Temple on a Wednesday morning as Fredda Wasserman, adult program director of Our House: Grief Support Center, discussed the nuances of mourning the loss of a loved one. Many clutched tissues and dabbed at their eyes throughout the presentation.

No more tears of a clown

By Ryan Torok
Published on March 15, 2011

A man walks into a shrink’s office and says he wants to commit suicide. “What you need is a good belly laugh,” the shrink says. “Go across the street to the circus. There’s a clown there who makes everybody laugh.” “Doc, I’ve been to the circus across the street,” the man says. “I’m the clown who makes everybody laugh.”

“Megillat Hitler,” FDR, and the Jews

Published on March 10, 2011

Among the more remarkable documents of the Holocaust is a scroll, created in North Africa in 1943, called "Megillat Hitler." Written in the style of Megillat Esther and the Purim story, it celebrates the Allies’ liberation of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, which saved the local Jewish communities from the Nazis. What the scroll’s author did not realize, however, was that at the very moment he was setting quill to parchment, those same American authorities were actually trying to keep in place the anti-Jewish legislation imposed in North Africa by the Nazis.