The anti-Semitic fallout from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks so appalled alternative journalists Joshua Neuman and David Deutsch that they went scurrying to their keyboards. \”The Big Book of Jewish Conspiracies,\” published in April 2005 by St. Martin\’s Griffin, is a compendium of Jewish conspiracies through the ages as seen through the eyes of, say, Woody Allen or Mel Brooks.\n
How Do Rabbis Choose Their Topics For High Holiday Sermons?\nWhat they don\’t do is gather together and get a list of topics from on high. But about a month or so before the major holidays — like Passover and Rosh Hashanah — the Board of Rabbis of Southern California sponsors a pre-holiday conference for rabbis to come together to study as well as become inspired and motivated.\n
A young man drives up to his garage and tries to open the door via remote, but it won\’t open. In the driveway next door, a Chasidic man blows a shofar, the long curly ram\’s horn, and — presto! — his garage door opens. \”These High Holy Days, stick with what works,\” scrolls on the computer screen of the Internet film \”Shofar, So Good.\” The short film closes with the young man blowing his own shofar to open his car\’s trunk.
Long Beach has had a significant and stable Jewish population for decades, so it might seem unusual for a synagogue to make major changes in the way it serves its membership and the community. In recent months, however, individuals and families in the area have been reevaluating their choices as a new option for affiliation has surfaced.
There are more than 3,000 synagogues in America. Why do some of them struggle week after week to make a minyan, while others are bustling with energy, song and laughter?
A brief rundown of the national synagogue revitalization programs that have arisen since the early 1990s.
Synagogue transformation programs exude good intentions, but do they actually work?
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