It’s 2020, a year we are not likely to soon forget. We’re barely halfway in, and the hits just keep coming: Australian fires, COVID-19, the killing of George Floyd, riots. We are people in emotional turmoil. The term for visual acuity is 20/20, the...
BY CANTOR-RABBI RON EICHAKER
• Published June 10, 2020
There is almost as much to unpack in this section of the Torah (Behaalotcha) as there is to unpack from these past weeks and months. In fact, there is so much to unpack, that I will need a little help; no, a lot of help. It’s always a good thing...
Shavuot, which we commemorated last week, marks the pivotal moment in Jewish history when God gave the Ten Commandments not only to Moses but to the entire Israelite community that gathered at Mount Sinai. Among those commandments is “Thou shalt not...
I received the email from Jewish Federation — the letter was dense and filled with ‘organization speak,’ a lot of words essentially saying nothing. The bottom line was clear: The Federation will close its educational opportunities offered for decades.I...
By Dr. Alison Spatz Levine
and Heather Maiman, JTA
• Published June 4, 2020
DENVER — In the summer of 1999, we slept head to head in top bunks at Camp Ramah in Canada. We also shared a viral upper respiratory illness that kept us from participating in the much-anticipated yom bli shemesh (a day without sun) while the rest of...
In the weeks following Marty Rochester’s commentary, “Foreign policy seems foreign to 2020 presidential campaign” (May 7, 2020), the worrying truth behind his observations was revealed even more clearly.The House of Representatives just passed a...
In May, the Missouri legislature passed a bill which, in the words of multiple opposed legislators, forces companies who have a major contract with the State of Missouri to sign a “loyalty oath” to the State of Israel (Senate Bill 739). A representative...
At the end of the school day Thursday, March 12, I called my yearbook representative on my way home from work. I knew that life as I knew it was about to change because of the coronavirus, and I needed to prepare myself, my family and my school family...
As summer begins and a period of calmer, warmer days sets in, our tradition calls us back to the wilderness. This week, Jewish communities all over the world will prepare to retell the story of the giving and receiving of the Torah at Mount Sinai recounted...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has done it again. Last week, the Israeli High Court ruled unanimously not to overturn the painstakingly negotiated power deal between his center-right Likud Party and rival Benny Gantz’s center-left Blue and...
BY ROBERT A. COHN, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus
• Published May 14, 2020
According to the Torah, Moses was 80 years old when he led the Israelites through the 40-year Exodus out of Egypt to the edge of the Promised Land. Now I am 80 years old and while I would not try to compare myself to Moses, our Greatest Prophet who...
D’var Torah: Parashat EMORAdonai said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: None shall become ritually impure for any [dead] person among their kin, except for the relatives that are closest to them: their mother, their...
