These days, more American families are adopting from China than any other foreign country, and a large number of those families are Jewish. A wave of girls is now coming of age, starting to face challenging issues of identity.
Marc Kessler, who conceived the show, along with Ken Davenport, said they first conceptualized a four-person band. But then they realized they could add \”the outsider\” archetype, and who would better fit that than a Jewish character?
Here is a question for the rabbis: Can a teenager acting out a bar mitzvah on stage actually get credit for becoming a man? What if he has rehearsed for months? And what if he reads a real Haftorah? Ricky Ashley, the 17-year-old who stars in the new musical \”13,\” never had a bar mitzvah. He was too busy acting and never found time to prepare. But now, Ashley is playing Evan Goldman, a 13-year-old who has his coming of age ceremony after moving to a new school in a new town, where the kids confuse \”bar mitzvah\” with \”Bon Jovi.\”
Rabbi Yaakov Horowitz wants to correct what he sees as a major misunderstanding about the history of Jews in this country. \”There\’s a misconception that Jewish life in America started after World War II,\” he said. \”But Jewish life existed more than 100 years before there even was a United States.\”
An observant Jew, Bleich provides a Jewish rationale for his commitment. While Judaism teaches that each individual is unique and special, it also emphasizes community, he says.
In a gallery carved into a stone wall amid the ancient ruins of Caesarea, Eran Grebler sits at a potter\’s wheel shaping clay dreidels.Grebler\’s dreidels are not your typical spinning tops. They don\’t have four sides, and they\’re not necessarily for Chanukah.
Experiencing the classic symptoms of altitude sickness — fatigue and hallucinations — Hall had refused to continue down the mountain and ended up passing out. The two sherpas with him concluded, after poking Hall in the eye and getting no response, that Hall was dead. Suffering from lack of oxygen themselves, they hurried down the mountain.
When Olga Bitterman, an 83-year-old Holocaust survivor, found out that another survivor needed help, she knew what to do. For a year, Bitterman left money in the other survivor\’s mailbox without leaving a trace of its origins.
The magic of the Jaffa Flea Market derives from both its past and present. The market began as a small bazaar in the mid-19th century. It is a rare remnant of the old Middle Eastern way of life in this modern Jewish country. But the market is also a place where Jews and Muslims work side by side as neighbors and friends.
Twenty-five years ago, Rabbi Harold S. Kushner wrote a book that changed his life and the perspective of millions,\”When Bad Things Happen to Good People\”. Now, Kushner, 71, has written another practical guide of spiritual wisdom. His 10th book, \”Overcoming Life\’s Disappointments,\” uses Moses\’ example to discuss ways of dealing with – and rising above – failure.
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