Hard-to-marry-off children have been worrying parents since Genesis, when Leah, her eyes tender from the sadness of being unwanted, took part in a hoax to trick Jacob — her younger, prettier sister\’s suitor — into marrying her.
Of the viewers who watched ABC\’s broadcast of the 79th National Spelling Bee on June 1, how many would have spelled the word meaning \”kosher approval\” the way the judges did?
When 50-year-old Hector Ventura was a young boy growing up in El Salvador four decades ago, his mother would always talk about Jewish customs. Which was strange, because the Venturas were not Jewish. Like most of their neighbors, they were Catholic — not particularly devout but Catholics just the same.
Eighteen months ago, when Lenard Cohen\’s 4-year-old daughter was enrolled in the family\’s congregational preschool, the Philadelphia-area father of three decided to go back to school himself.
With the flurry that surrounds a b\’nai mitzvah celebration, we often lose sight that this day — this passage from childhood to adulthood — will be one of the most meaningful memories of his or her life.
Joanne Rocklin is obsessed with food. On her 60th birthday, she began summarizing her life with the essentials: \”I love to cook. I love to eat\”. But it\’s her passion for writing that has enabled her to come to terms with her life and her faith.
Michael Sachs remembers that he had initially thought that a program on death wasn\’t really important for people in their 40s.
\”But, in fact,\” he now says, \”I learned things I assumed I wouldn\’t need to think about for many years. I thought the program dealt with potentially distressing material in a nonthreatening, matter-of-fact fashion,\” he said.
The association of Darfur with the Shoah is a natural one for us. When we hear phrases such as \”ethnic cleansing\” and \”relocation,\” we know all too well what these euphemisms are concealing; the organized destruction of a people.
This section of the page is a way for you as kids to sound off about an issue. This month\’s Kein v\’ Lo (yes and no) is about camps. Should Jewish kids go to Jewish camps or other kinds of camps?
While there are only four questions posed in the haggadah, most seders struggle with the unasked fifth question, \”When are we going to eat?\” It is asked, not only by hungry children, but also by adults who feel disconnected to the rituals of their ancestors.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.