(JTA) — Deborah Lipstadt, recently named by President Joe Biden as the U.S. Special Envoy To Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, won’t just combat anti-Semitism but may well eliminate it.
And that would be a mistake.
To be clear, the Emory University...
(Israel21c) - It’s that time of year, when we look forward to the temperatures dropping as well as the number of Covid cases. So the possibility of hiking the Israel Trail, the country’s longest at approximately 1,025 kilometers (about 637 miles),...
(JTA) — “Hey Allies: Please don’t schedule meetings or events on the Jewish holidays!” So says a meme that has circulated widely in recent days including the dates for Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot and Simchat Torah.
Seems like a pretty...
(JTA) — To the rabbis and religious leaders putting the finishing touches to your High Holiday sermons, I’d like to make a suggestion: Use this Jewish New Year to talk about Israel from the pulpit.
And not just Israel. Talk about the bonds between...
Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein
• Published August 31, 2021
(JTA) — Over the past year, I have led efforts to teach, guide and coach rabbis and other clergy of every Jewish denomination. We have worked with over 500 individual members of the clergy, serving hundreds of thousands of people since the COVID-19...
(JTA) — When a local Orthodox synagogue asked me to lead Yom Kippur prayers six years ago, one aspect of the request stood out: Was I comfortable using the “High Holyday Prayer Book” translated and edited by Philip Birnbaum?
The archaic spelling...
A dozen years ago, my twin brother Stuart passed away. At his funeral, in my eulogy for him, I noted that I had just lost “my oldest and closest friend.” In July, I lost another very close friend. Unlike my brother, who lingered for months with cancer,...
(JTA) — We are, once again, in a season of reckoning with sexual abuse in the Jewish community and in the country.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned after a state attorney general investigation found that he sexually harassed at least 11 women,...
I listened online to a recent St. Louis County Council meeting regarding a proposed mask mandate ordinance. Hundreds of area physicians had urged the council to adopt the ordinance as COVID cases were spiking, again filling hospital ICUs around the state....
Dan Buffa, Special to the Jewish Light
• Published August 23, 2021
Somewhere in Hollywood, a good movie about John Vogel, the most notorious counterfeiter in U.S. history, exists. Sean Penn's "Flag Day," unfortunately, isn't that movie.
It's too bad because the talent assembled here is impressive. Penn, who directed...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — It was a beautiful sunny afternoon in Brooklyn this week, when my neighborhood came together for “One Crown Heights,” a day of music, entertainment, rides and activities for children and community conversation.
The...
ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
• Published August 19, 2021
TV images of the lightning-fast Taliban victory in Afghanistan are both stunning and sickening.
On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., Taliban fighters have utterly defeated...
