This year, in advance of Shavuot, the National Library of Israel (NLI) has released a series of video clips featuring four of the most significant Torah scrolls from its world-leading Judaica collection. Due to their exceedingly delicate state, the Torah...

When Yoav Levanon was three years old, he was very curious about his mother’s upright piano. He touched it, he said, and immediately fell in love. He started playing… and playing… and on May 6, Levanon, now 18, he released his debut album with...

Now that summer is upon us, it’s time to get ready for what is commonly considered the best holiday on the Jewish calendar: Shavuot. Coming seven weeks after Passover (Shavuot means “weeks” in Hebrew), Shavuot begins this year at nightfall on June...

American audiences have long been fascinated by TV series exploring life in the Orthodox Jewish community. Be it the storied “Shtisel” or Brooklyn’s “Unorthodox”, these tales have typically taken a searingly dramatic look at the Hasidic way...

Who hasn’t heard a friend claiming that being a grandparent is better than being a parent? You get to play with the child but can give them back when you want. Is it really that simple? Aren’t there “rules” that grandparents ought to abide by? Let’s...

‘Tis the season of caps and gowns, pomp and circumstance, diplomas and celebrations — it’s graduation time! My kids are a few years away from this milestone. Some of my friends’ kids are finishing high school and college, giving me a preview of...

“Will this thing ever leave my life?” Robert Mark Kamen asks the sunlight flooding into his office through a broad stretch of windows. They grant a spectacular view of his Sonoma, Calif., vineyard. No, comes the unspoken answer. It never will. But...

It was 1946 when Elvis Presley recorded “That’s All Right Mama,” his first release. The location was Memphis’ Sun Studio, now considered by many as the birthplace of rock ‘n roll. B.B. King, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison all recorded...

Mara Cohen Ioannides, an English professor at Missouri State University, once lived in New York where, she said, “If you want something, you ask for it.” So Cohen Ioannides did not understand when the editor of OzarksWatch magazine approached her...

How did a popular Yiddish woman's name come to mean gossip and busybody? In the first of our new Word of the Week mini-series, we trace the evolution of the word yenta. Producer Jen Richler talks with Fiddler on the Roof scholar Jan Lisa Huttner, comedian...