This article originally appeared in Kveller.As the Festival of Lights approaches, you might frying latkes and making applesauce in your dreams. The food is delicious and everyone is content and full, and above all, the meal is mess and stress-free. Then...

When Leslie Raynsford was growing up in the 1950s and ’60s in West Orange, N.J., the community was half-Jewish, half-Italian.“Every other person on my court — there was the Vicedominis and then the Weissmans and then the Perantis. It was Jewish/Italian/Jewish/Italian,”...

For Jewish children, the excitement of Hanukkah is often connected to the promise of receiving gifts — usually one for each of the eight nights. For parents, however, the gift-buying and gift-giving can start to feel like a long-running episode of the...

BOSTON — As a child, Sheryl Haft was captivated by the sounds of her grandparents speaking Yiddish.Sing-songy terms of endearment like “bubbala” and “mamleh shayne” sparked joy when her grandmother used them. Grittier words like “shmendrick”...

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (a.k.a. when I attended Sunday School as a child), I recall grasping the parallel between Hanukkah’s miracle of a vial of oil lasting 8 days and frying latkes in oil. It made sense then just as it does in my adulthood.However,...

No more procrastinating. It’s time to get serious about Hanukkah shopping, as the start of the festival of lights is less than two weeks away. I’ve once again channeled my shopping super power, and also enlisted help from Hanukkah Harriett (a.k.a....

With Hanukkah and Christmas overlapping this year, the annual concern that has come to be known as the December Dilemma takes on added timeliness. Navigating through a cluster of joyous religious holidays without prompting hurt feelings, charges of discrimination...

In 168 BCE, the ruler of the Syrian kingdom, Antiochus Epiphanes IV, stepped up his campaign to quash Judaism, so that all subjects in his vast empire — which included the Land of Israel — would share the same culture and worship the same gods.(Note:...

Maybe you’ve seen it on Facebook already. It has certainly made the rounds, with more than 1 million views and counting on that platform alone, all within three days of the Jewish a cappella group Six13 posting its latest music video. Entitled “Bohemian...

Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights, marks the reclamation and rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem by a small group of Jews who miraculously defeated a much larger army. Adding to the miracle, when these Jews lit the menorah, the last of...