It is only with tremendous effort that we can dissect the nature and components of the first systematic, industrialized, determined, ideologically inspired and directed effort to thoroughly eliminate a group of \”racially\” identified people.
During the past few years, an effort has been made to retrieve women\’s devotional literature and present it to a contemporary Jewish world.
In traditional Jewish life, parents often add excitement to Pesach (or Shavuot or Sukkot) by giving gifts to their children (and even each other). Gift-giving, not just reserved for Chanukah and birthdays, spices up all of Jewish life.
\”King David: The Real Life of the Man Who Ruled Israel\” by Jonathan Kirsch (Ballantine Books, $28)
In his \”Reading the Book: Making the Bible a Timeless Text,\” Rabbi Burton Visotzky writes, \”To the extent that the Bible reveals the words of God to a community, it is essential that students get those words down right, so that they may become part of the community. In certain communities, students of the Bible are free to question, grapple, doubt and deny — so long as they first hear their community\’s reading of God\’s word.\”
In \”Dangerous Diplomacy,\” Theo Tschuy introduces a forgotten hero of the Shoah, Carl Lutz, a man who certainly deserves to take his place among the Wallenbergs and Schindlers.
In 1995, nurse, mystery writer and prospective single mom Serita Stevens traveled to Romania to adopt an abandoned 9-month-old baby girl. So appalled was she at the conditions in the orphanage at which she finally met her future daughter, she started Hugs and Hopes–Romania to help care for the orphans and abandoned children in a country still struggling to recover from the ruin and desperation caused by the Ceausescu regime.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.