One of the bigger shopping challenges has always been buying gifts for Dad. Since the pandemic changed work attire forever, it also eliminated the lame but reliable fallback of a tie.   So what can you do to show Dad you care on Father’s Day?  Donate...

Gloria Steinem has been a public figure since the 1960s, but there is much to learn and admire about her personal history in “Gloria: A Life.” The play by Emily Mann is fascinating and inspiring in the current production by the New Jewish Theatre. Steinem...

This story originally appeared on My Jewish Learning. (JTA) — Over the past few weeks, a lot of sad faces were peering at their screens as two popular television shows came to an end. Two HBO staples, “Succession” and “Barry,” aired their...

(JTA) — My 95-year-old mother knows a thing or two about trauma. Not only because she is a survivor of Auschwitz but also because she is a psychologist. “What worries me,” my mother says, “is that we Jews will succumb to our past trauma rather...

(JTA) — On the way home from the hospital where I was given my diagnosis of grade 2 invasive lobular breast cancer, I directed my husband, through my tears, to stop at the kosher store. “I don’t want to see anyone right now,” I said, knowing...

(JTA) — When my wife and I were planning our wedding, we thought it might be cool to hire a klezmer band. This was during the first wave of the klezmer revival, when groups like The Klezmatics and The Klezmer Conservatory Band were rediscovering the...

This story originally appeared on My Jewish Learning. (JTA) — The Shavuot holiday that we observed last month commemorates two different kinds of harvests. Originally an agricultural festival, Shavuot marked the culmination of the wheat harvest...

As a 16-year-old in St. Louis, I began attending a small Reform synagogue in my neighborhood. I went alone, every Friday night, for two years. I wasn’t Jewish — I wasn’t much of anything at that time — but I felt a pull, a connection with Judaism....

(JTA) — Rabbi Arthur Green gave the commencement address last week at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Conservative flagship where he was ordained 56 years earlier. His talk was mostly a response to political turmoil in Israel, but he also urged...

Story about helping Ukrainian family warms the heart  In this frightening world with so many upsetting issues in the news, it was heartwarming for me to read about Lynn Wittels and her generosity in helping the Ukrainian family whose son, Nikita, needed...

I love television so much that it inspired my home office décor, as you can see from this photo. Television can simultaneously be a huge waste of time, a way to stay informed, and educational, depending on what you’re watching.  Which category do...

Recently, a friend posted a video of a popular motivational speaker discussing why some children struggle to make friends. He concluded that it was a parent’s job to “maximize the social attractiveness of your children — because they need friends...