CATEGORY
Poetry
Chayei Sarah
Rick Lupert - 0
I What is it with this this mortal impermanence? You live and do things and the end is inevitable. Like a story called life which begins with...
A Poem For Parsha Vayera
Rick Lupert - 0
I A child is born. They name him laughter. Another child is sent away as if blood doesn’t exist. The original seeds of a divided Jerusalem are sown right here. Hardly anyone...
Poem: Lech Lecha
Rick Lupert - 0
Consider the very first jew — Abraham. Not even his name when the whole thing started. Had a reputation. The kind of kid who would destroy the...
Poem: Windburn
There’s something about Santa Anas tobogganing down western slopes that stirs the crazies down below. Pyromaniacs get out their matches, serial killers eye their knives, acorns drop from old...
When the Untouchables Are Touched
At 4:37 a.m. on July 26, 2019, police responded to a call. A homeless woman was attacked while sleeping on the streets of Portland,...
Warts and All
Funny how the things that bothered are the things I miss jumbled pj’s in the closet toothpaste landscape in the sink feather tickle that raised goosebumps honed to quills...
Tower of Power
Power drives and power cords Power surges tranquilized by power strips Power moves at hot-spot power breakfasts Power bases pouncing on a power shift PowerPoint presentations at high-power...
Reminders for the New Year
Rick Lupert - 0
Dip the apples in the honey, not the other way around. Your napkin supply and fingers will thank you. Practice blowing the shofar ahead of time but, please, do...
Sting Like a Butterfly
My mother laid it out for me: even changed into a butterfly I’d still have a caterpillar’s face. Geisha-fluttering in summer gardens or blossom-shopping on a pastel breeze I’d...
The Cake Topper
Judy Gruen - 0
They stand arm-in-arm, expressions thoughtful. The groom, in his tuxedo, holds his top hat across his lower belly like a shield. The bride, in...
Born and Raised
Swampscott, Scituate, Cotuit — ragged towns on rugged coast softened by the sun. Ocean tides and noontime whistles measured summer’s taffy days, nighttime crickets’ legs rubbed love songs, sunburns flaking...
Forbidden Fruit
Is it thrill of domination, the slip-slide roller coaster of because-I-can that makes important men risk everything for one forbidden shudder? Do lizard brains delete what’s known to whisper their forever tales into...
Poem: Oath of Disloyalty
I am a disloyal Jew. I am not loyal to a political party. Nor will I be loyal to dictators and mad kings. I am not loyal...
CA Man’s Poem on Trump’s ‘Disloyal Jew’ Comment Picks Up Following
On the morning of Aug. 21, Reb Irwin Keller woke up with poetry in his head. "I grabbed my phone and started dictating. I then...
Kinah for Tisha b’Av 5779
We ask Eikhah? We ask how and why and by whom? For the children who cannot understand why their parents won’t come in the night...
My Lamentations (Eicha)
Emily Stern - 0
Fury has come. Truth has been hidden in plain sight And those refuse to see through their hearts And eyes to know, really know, we are One great,...
Cinema Paradiso
My husband goes to movies on the inside of his forehead, where he’s a spy in fancy suits. Gorgeous girls admire his abs and other things about him I’ve...
Later
We put the elevator in for later, when pills queued up on nightstands and rubber soles squeaked through halls. It was an item on the master plan, like...
Abracadabra
It’s better not to know the trick that lets the caped man saw the girl in two. We look for clues each time the hoop is passed — delighted...
We Keep Getting the Stink-Eye – A poem for parsha Balak
Rick Lupert - 0
Moab became disgusted because of the children of Israel. We keep getting the stink-eye from Moab and their ilk. They’re looking for our horns and checking their wallets when...
Game Face
At playoff games, I almost kiss the guy in G-14, conjoined in Final Fever, we rise together for each full court press, toes clenched as though it’s our feet launched...
Thumbs Down
I wring my hands, I cannot clap The play on stage so drab and dark Between the plot points yawning gap Strangled scenes that rarely spark The play...
Nevertheless We Resisted
It isn’t like they didn’t try to tell us with charts and graphs and documentary footage of the ice cap melt and whales rotting homeless on receding sand. We...
If We’re Going to Occupy A Promised Land, There’d Better be Grapes – A poem for parsha Sh’lach
Rick Lupert - 0
All of them were men of distinction; they were the heads of the children of Israel. Not all men of distinction are worthy of their title. Just...
Happy Camper
I might have been a happy camper at a place with heated water and electric lights, where the mess hall didn’t smell like vomit and the rafters...
The Foundling
At some point every child fantasizes herself a foundling, left on a doorstep by a princess to be raised by a simple shoemaker and his wife. The princess-mother...
The Only Child
They were older than the other parents, gray and pale, with consonants that gargled when they said come in. They played Beethoven sonatas on their hi-fi and taught...
Apology for the Genocides
TO: Victims FROM: Management RE: Current claim We regret that our associates (whom we never met) raped your women (so beautiful) and gunned your men down in the streets (violence a continuing...
Carlebach Moshav of Love and Prayer Up in Flames
Devastation abounds in me. My entire moshav (settlement) in Israel has burned down and been destroyed. My parents and two of my brothers’ families...
Lose the P
SUBTRACT youth’s silver smile KNOCK OFF teenage slouch ZERO guitar fantasies DEDUCT hipster cool TAKE AWAY belief that good things come in time if you put time in MINUS...
New Articles
News
Lebanese Information Minister Resigns Amid Unrest Following Beirut Disaster
The decision was made as a “response to the public will for change,” minister says • Hezbollah chief, Lebanese leaders hanged in effigy in Beirut protests.
News
Trump’s Germany Ambassador Pick Under Fire from Jewish Groups for Statements on Immigrants and Nazi History
The nomination of Douglas Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran who now frequently appears on Fox News, made headlines this week after CNN’s K File unearthed a long history of the retired colonel’s comments.
Israel
Israeli Cabinet Meeting Canceled Amid Ongoing State Budget Dispute
Likud Party: Blue and White is blocking a $2.5 billion economic aid program. Blue and White: Likud is refusing to honor the coalition agreement.
News
David Goldfein, Jewish US Air Force Chief, Is Stepping Down
Gen. David Goldfein, who for a time was in line to become the first Jewish chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has retired as Air Force chief.
Elections
A Jewish Guide to Joe Biden’s VP Short List
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is expected to name his running mate in the next two weeks, and while the list of contenders has changed constantly for months, most reports have now whittled the group of front-runners down to Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Susan Rice, Karen Bass, Tammy Duckworth and Keisha Lance Bottoms.
