Remember your Torah Portion? Your party theme?
Jewish Journal staffers share memories of their super sweet (and sometimes super awkward) bar and bat mitzvahs, from traumatic Torah portions to getting down on the dance floor. With no shortage of party themes, over-enthusiastic deejays, and dance floor crazes (remember heads up 7 up?), they recall their coming-of-age tales. Make sure to check out our Mazel Tov! supplement in this week’s issue of the Jewish Journal.
A report on how the Jewish-American nostalgia for a political home is revealed in the lead up to Michigan’s elections.
The first parliamentary election since Oct. 7, 2023, pits Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition against Gadi Eisenkot’s ideologically diverse opposition, with neither bloc expected to secure a governing majority.
Sleep-deprived and anxious, I called my friend Yossi Klein Halevi in Jerusalem in the hope that it might bring some relief to my nervous system.
The event will cover topics like family relationship challenges, passing down Jewish joy, long-distance grandparenting, and the role of grandfathers, while offering tools for active grandparents.
This is where democracy is truly tested. Not at the ballot box on Election Day, but long before, in classrooms where educators decide whether to avoid controversy or help students learn how to engage disagreement with curiosity, respect, and a recognition of one another’s humanity.
Like in many other Western countries, the center in France has capsized. All that’s left is the death-wish nihilism of the extremes—and an unhealthy dose of Islamist menace.
No matter how long we have lived, no matter how far we have traveled, the most important part of our becoming may still lie ahead.
Faith is disappearing in the western world, but we carry on.
The Ziegler reopening reflects AJU’s broader goal of helping create a sustainable pipeline of future rabbis.
This is not the party I want to be at.
It’s no coincidence that American Jews generally don’t know that at some point the German language slithered its way into their last names.
The classroom becomes an instrument for advancing political causes rather than a place where those causes are freely examined and debated.
What could our lives look like if we embraced the infinitesimal as infinite?
Notable people and events in the Jewish LA community.
Does the company we keep enable our name to be a blessing? Are we doing enough to make our name as great as God intends?
Three years after Oct. 7, a country trying to heal is still waiting for a full accounting of what went wrong.
Second of two parts
“These women were pivotal to both the process and the outcome of the trial. Yet they were marginalized on many occasions, literally reduced to footnotes.“
