
Humans of Israel: My Uncle Isaac
As I sat in the plane on my way to Israel, I reflected on the 43-year relationship I had with my father’s youngest brother.
As I sat in the plane on my way to Israel, I reflected on the 43-year relationship I had with my father’s youngest brother.
For North African Jews, it’s a night when we turn over our homes from Passover to Mimouna, a joyous family and community-oriented cultural celebration that’s all about blessings, smiles and sweets.
Kotlianski’s story begins a few days before Passover, on Shabbat HaGadol, the Shabbat immediately preceding Passover.
As a Sephardic Jew who was raised with the classic Sephardic principles of tolerance, respect and religious moderation, I lament the contemporary absence of these values in today’s Sephardic rabbinic leaders, especially in Israel.
I always wanted to explore the Holocaust on a deeper level.
Three years before the advent of Yom Hashoah, another day was designated to recite Kaddish for the victims of the Holocaust.
As a man of letters, Agnon showed deep appreciation for America’s marketplace of ideas and viewpoints.
It was a Rosh Hashanah like no other. It was the Rosh Hashanah when I felt as if I held a “Book of Life” in my hands. On that day, for the very first time, I opened S.Y. Agnon’s beautiful High Holy Days book “Yamim Noraim — Days of Awe.”
When we sat down for that cup of coffee (or two, or three…), he asked me to recount our previous meetings. For me, those meetings were almost a mirror image of the various issues that came to define his life as a brilliant literary figure and outspoken public intellectual.
The illustrious world of Kabbalah and Mysticism as we know it was born on Shavuot in Salonika in 1533, courtesy of two outstanding Sephardic scholars.