Ruth’s day is coming. Not the Ruth with all the home runs. The other Ruth, the biblical one who hit an eternal shot for Jews by Choice. We read her book and story on Shavuot. Her words of commitment spoken to her mother-in-law, Naomi, travel over time to us on the holiday: “Wherever you go I will go, and wherever you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God.”
Earlier this year, I got a call from an old friend, Rabbi Juan Mejia. Juan asked me if I’d be willing to accompany him and Rabbi Felipe Goodman to San Miguel de Allende for a couple of days in early February. Juan, Felipe and I have a lot in common: We laugh at the same jokes, we all speak Spanish, and we’re all rabbis. A little getaway to Mexico in the middle of winter? Sure, I could fit that into my schedule — no problem, I said.
It all started with Signora Grazia, an elderly cheese maker in Panzano, Italy. While vacationing in this Tuscan village, just 30 minutes south of Florence, we walked by her farm early one morning and saw the sign that read “Pecorino and Fresh Ricotta for Sale.”
Ask a group of average Jews what they know about Shavuot, and you’re likely to hear something like: “Oh sure, that’s the holiday when we eat cheesecake.” From a biblical standpoint, Shavuot is one of the holiest days in Judaism, but as a holiday on the Jewish calendar it is one of the most misunderstood and overlooked.
Joan Nathan says she\’s always had a particular fascination with French Jews and their food. For Nathan, author of \”Quiches, Kugels, and Couscous: My Search for Jewish Cooking in France (Knopf, 2010), the love affair with French cuisine started as a teenager when she made her first trip to France in the 1950s. The prolific cookbook author says the simple pleasure of sampling a slightly melted bar of chocolate sandwiched into a crackly baguette transformed her life.
Passover is over and Shavuot is weeks away. It\’s a season when Jews traditionally take time for contemplation and reflection. This year, I\’ve been reflecting on Catholicism. Rather on the complicated interfaith nexuses between Catholics and Jews. In large part, of course, this is because of the beatification May 1 of Pope John Paul II.
An Orthodox Jewish plaintiff in a medical malpractice trial will be allowed a retrial after he missed part of the trial for a religious holiday. The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled Feb. 24 that by not rescheduling the court date so that Alexander Neustadter could appear, his opponent went unchallenged, prejudicing the trial.
Recently my 3-year-old granddaughter played with a music box she had received from her parents at Chanukah.
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“What is Chanukah?” I asked her.
Hundreds of young people gathered to become a part of Camp Obama for intensive three-day weekend retreats throughout the months of July and August of 2007. Several of the retreats were led by Marshall Ganz, a Harvard professor of sociology, and son of a rabbi and World War II Army chaplain).
\” . . . It is wishful thinking by the writer that Obama\’s chance to be president has been torpedoed by his past association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. McCain and the writer want us to focus on this guilt by association nonissue, rather than on Obama\’s own actions and words and the terrible political and economic conditions our beloved country has fallen into under the Bush/Cheney regime . . .\”
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