Tens of thousands of Jews filled Citi Field in Queens on Sunday and heard from haredi Orthodox leaders that the Internet should be avoided in the home at all costs and used sparingly at work, and then only with a filter blocking content that could be damaging spiritually.
When a family member behaves self-destructively, what do you do? Do you become an apologist, an enabler, or do you call him out? Do you blame everyone else but him, or do you intervene? Do you sit back and just hope things will improve on their own, or do you take urgent action?
For the past six years The Samuel Bronfman Foundation, which is named in honor of my father and that I now run with my son Adam, has held a conference called \”Why Be Jewish?\” It is an intimate gathering that seeks to explore an expansive question. This year, in conjunction with the Shalom Hartman Institute, we will focus on the idea of Jewish pluralism.
Unlike other Jewish holidays, the Torah does not specify a date for Shavuot; it is celebrated on the 50th day (seven weeks) after Passover. We moderns celebrate Shavuot on the 6th day of the month of Sivan; in ancient times, when the first day of every month was declared only when the new moon was first seen, the holiday could have been celebrated on the 5th, 6th or 7th day of Sivan.
With the contemporary music world buzzing about Regina Spektor’s upcoming album nearly a month before its release, I cannot help but think about the young musician’s rise in the context of Russian-speaking Jewry.
Few would describe the book of Leviticus as a page-turner. Its often-turgid descriptions of sacrifices (or korbanot) can be seen nowadays as perfectly calculated to let shul-goers catch up on their sleep. When we as a people lost korbanot, however, we lost something deeply profound — and our relationship with God demands that somehow we recover it.
Ed Asner, aka Lou Grant, walked slowly to the front of the stage at the Museum of Tolerance on Sunday night, and in his familiar growl — this time with a Latvian accent — he softly spoke: “Thank you for the help that is not only material, but also moral. A person lives through hope, and I hope it will get better.”
For decades, the American Jewish community has debated the advisability, constitutionality and necessity of government aid to Jewish (and other faiths’) parochial schools. But with the United States still experiencing tough economic challenges, the American Jewish community finds its schools under greater financial stress than ever.
Today, I stopped home to change my outfit before picking up my kid from day care.
This one’s for our children — the teens and 20-somethings who were born in this country or who’ve lived here most of their life, who have no memory of Iran except what’s been passed on to them or what they’ve constructed with their imagination.
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