Like everyone else, I used to divide the prostitutes smuggled into Israel from the former Soviet republics into two categories — the good ones who were tricked into it, and the bad ones who knew what they were getting into.
I think differently now. After meeting one of the \”bad\” ones for a story I\’m doing, I see them all, both the knowing and unknowing, as victims, as innocents.
This year Yom Kippur begins on Friday night and continues until sundown on Saturday. Since many families do not cook on Shabbat, I planned a menu that will solve the problem.
Davi Cheng had some trepidation when she went to Hillel for the first time. She tried to feel comfortable, but she couldn\’t understand the language of the services and the liturgical rituals were confusing.
Then she spied something unfamiliar on a bookshelf that made her feel right at home: a shofar.
Here\’s a marketing nightmare: You have your biggest and most captive audience of the year, and rather than dangling the kind of well-packaged, enticing tidbits that might draw people back for more, you offer up several hours worth of weighty and complex theological ideas wrapped in obscure ritual.
Welcome to the High Holidays, where twice-a-year attendees get their primary one-on-one time with Judaism, meeting up with a God and a tradition that don\’t necessarily reflect what goes on behind the main sanctuary doors the rest of the year.
Dad, I have my first big test in biology next Thursday, Sandy explained. Next Thursday? Yep. Sorry, honey, you are going to have to miss it. Next Thursday is Rosh Hashanah and I want you to go to services with me.
Ah, the High Holidays. The mere words conjure up memories of long services, uncomfortable clothing, endless Hebrew passages, Mom and Dad dozing off, semi-fasting against my will, and, most of all, not quite taking in what the holidays were all about. What can I say? I was a kid.
We have spoken slander; we have acted presumptuously; we have practiced deceit. Each year we beat our chest and resolve to change.
The writers of the machzor were pretty comprehensive in listing the multitude of sins we commit as a community over the course of the year.
A few weeks ago, I was at a funeral at Mount Sinai in Glendale when, at one of the most emotional moments, a cell phone rang loudly for several minutes, humming a Broadway tune.
\”I am Jewish,\” were the words Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl spoke to his terrorist captors shortly before they murdered him.
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