Almost two years ago, while watching a YouTube video of Mohammed Fairouz’s “Tahrir for Clarinet and Orchestra,” Neal Brostoff, a visiting lecturer in Jewish music history at UCLA, had an idea. The concerto sounded “surprisingly Jewish,” he thought, and not just because the soloist was the eminent klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer.
French President Francois Hollande visited the Jerusalem graves of the victims of the attack on a Toulouse Jewish school.\n
Kaddish – The origins of this most famous Jewish prayer are shrouded in history. Most agree that it began with the central words, “Y’hei Sh’mei Rabbah Mevorach L’Olam u’l’Almei Almaya,” or “May God’s Name be praised now and forever.” One source suggests that the Kaddish was originally recited at the conclusion of a learning session in the study halls of ancient Israel. After engaging in the sacred task of study, these words were recited to show honor and reverence for the learning and to pay respect to the teacher.
Mina Bear died Sept. 18 at 88. Survived by daughter Moraye (John Hall); brothers Nate, Leo Rosen. Hillside
Israeli Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger said he\’ll say Kaddish for jailed spy Jonathan Pollard\’s father, who was buried Monday.
Everybody keeps asking me whether George Carlin was Jewish. \”I heard he was related to the Karlin-Stoliner rebbe,\” a colleague said.
At a time when faith is a substitute for knowledge, when the faithful assert their ignorance with pride and even try to foist it on the public schools, the pope was a model of spirituality melded to a fierce, probing intellect. He spoke several languages, read deeply in philosophy and religion, and understood that secular knowledge informs, rather than undermines, belief.
Congratulations! You have been invited to the bar/bat mitzvah of a friend or family member. Now what?
When Esther Goshen-Gottstein\’s husband of 39 years died, she felt like her world had crumbled. \”The bottom had fallen out my life, as in an earthquake, when the ground on which one has stood firmly for years suddenly collapses,\” she writes in \”Surviving Widowhood\” (Gefen, 2002).
We buried her 13 months ago — this flower, this light, this precious partner of his for 60 years. Everything was done in our ancient way: the funeral with its torn, black ribbons and clods of earth thunking on plain pine; the shiva, with its prayers, grief and Bundt cakes; a year of \”Kaddish\” ending with an unveiled marker that captured his love for her in words as terse as Haiku.
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