I watched my son’s little red Mazda dart around an SUV. My husband and I were following him up, carrying half of what he was planning to move into his dorm room. As we hit the open road, the distance between us increased until I realized that my son had speeded on ahead and out […]
In early September, I stood outside JCC Rockland and with a group of about 50 people spanning generations, remembered the 11 Israeli athletes who were murdered in the 1972 Munich Olympics. You could say it was an off year memorial, the 41st since Palestinian terrorists took the athletes hostage. It was small and simple, and […]
Corey Gradin has new lungs — and with them, a chance for a future. She received her lungs in late May in an operation that took place at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. Who they belonged to, and how the family members decided to donate his or her organs to a dying 16-and-a-half year old, […]
Early in the summer, Rev. Weldon McWilliams IV along with 25 others, walked into Rockland Kosher Supermarket, tucked behind the intersection of Routes 59 and 306, and bought groceries. Not very remarkable. It is a grocery store, after all. But it’s a niche grocery store, a very large one that contains only kosher certified products. […]
The world is a really queer place. How else can you explain the idea that is gaining traction that Israel is using its favorable record on gay rights to mask abuses of occupation? But that is the argument of those who are touting pinkwashing. Promoted primarily by Sarah Schulman, a professor at the College of Staten […]
So much fuss over a matzah ball, nu? Well, not a matzah ball, but a knaidel. Or is it kneydl? Or knaydl? Or kneidel? Because when Arvind Mahankali, a 13-year-old from Queens, correctly spelled the word for a doughy dumpling that even the most unengaged of Jews have consumed, he unleashed an unabahsed frenzy of […]
The first time I davened at the Kotel, I was 16 and with a group of girls from my teen tour. Our leaders brought us to the last vestige of the Temple, the remaining western wall. The boys and men funneled down the path to the men’s side to do their thing and we were […]
I was half listening to the announcements at the end of the Saturday morning service when something the rabbi was saying broke through the noise in my head. I was pretty sure I heard him announce that we could sell our chametz online. Immediately, I pictured a sort of eBay marketplace, where I could auction […]
I was already in a bad mood when I arrived at Costco before Shabbat. The store hadn’t let my son make my purchases, since he wasn’t on my account. I had to wait for him to return home with my card, and then go back to the store myself. Since it was Friday afternoon, the […]
More than 48,000 people can’t be wrong. Can they? Apparently the International Olympic Committee (IOC) thinks so. Its president, Jacques Rogge, delivered that message in the form of a resounding “no” to Israel’s request for a minute of silence in memory of the Munich 11 at the London Olympics this summer. Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister […]
