At 82, I’m dealing with the harsh reality of illness and death striking down relatives and friends.  Add to this the relentless news of the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, the cloud of sadness can envelop the soul.   One thing we can...

(JTA) — Jews across America are still reeling from this past Shabbat when a rabbi and three congregants were held at gunpoint by an antisemitic terrorist in Colleyville, Texas.  In response to these harrowing events, many institutions have suggested...

I attended the recent Jewish Community Relations Council Zoom meeting, but as I had not attended for years I chose not to speak. The issue that drove increased attendance was whether or not to admit J Street St. Louis (see the previous story). The...

(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — It was the best of Twitter. It was the worst of Twitter. During the long agonizing hours of last Saturday evening, during which a rabbi and three congregants were held against their will at a Dallas-area synagogue,...

(J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — The Jan. 15 hostage situation at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, has inspired many fears: that there will be more violence directed at synagogues, that this attack will fuel Islamophobia,...

(JTA) — This past Saturday’s terrifying hostage-taking at the synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, was a rare moment of unity in the Jewish community. Jews of different denominational stripes and political dispositions joined together in prayer for...

(JTA) — In 1957, at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered words whose wisdom continue to resound today: “For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That’s what hate does....

(JTA) — As a rabbi who works as a chaplain at a hospital in Indianapolis, I’ve held my tongue a lot when it comes to COVID-19 and the emotional strain it puts on medical staff. But now — as my team at Indiana University Health is responsible for...

This article originally appeared on Alma. There’s a new siddur on the block that uses all nonbinary Hebrew forms and neopronouns for G-d* in English. “Siddur Davar Ḥadash” is designed for accessibility, with full transliteration and...

Forgive me as I continue to shake the cobwebs from my brain after a month-long binge of the Hallmark channel. As regular readers may recall, I am a sucker for totally predictable made-for-TV holiday movies, especially ones that go heavy on the cheese. It...

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (z”l), my teacher and cousin, once said that it is quite easy to tell which are the most profound Jewish holidays. They are, he suggested, the ones that are observed by the smallest number of individuals.  His statement...

Recently, I was honored to address the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit, the largest gathering of Israeli Americans in the country, in Hollywood, Fla. Notably, it was the first major Israeli and Jewish American conference since the pandemic,...