Jewish Holidays
What makes for the perfect Purim-spiel? Cantor Marnie Camhi, who serves Temple Beth Miriam in Elberon, N.J., has become a bit of an expert. In addition to composing liturgical music, she has created 10 original Purim-spiels, which have been performed in hundreds of congregations and day schools throughout the United States and Canada. We sat down with Cantor Camhi, who was ordained by the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music of Hebrew at Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, to learn more about the art of the Purim-spiel. ReformJudaism.org: How do you go about creating a... Read More
My mother left this life two years ago this month. She died on Shabbat Shirah. On the Sabbath when Moses and the children of Israel sang while Miriam the Prophet led everyone in dance after crossing the sea to freedom, my mother crossed her own personal Sea of Reeds to go home. Home was where she wanted to go; and home she went. But first, she lived. Musically, Ursula Marx was a squib between two generations of wizards: Her mother sang; her daughter sang. In her case, however, "singing voice" was an oxymoron. If notes were nickels, my blessed mother didn't have two to rub together. Her... Read More
When the Zionist movement was newly blossoming in the early 20th century, a prominent group of cultural-spiritual Zionists insisted that that it was not only Jews who would be saved by a return to the Land of Israel; Judaism itself had to be renewed as well. A return to the Land would inevitably impact the ways in which Judaism was expressed – not just in the Palestine, but in Jewish communities everywhere. Therefore, one task of the pioneering olim (immigrants) was to infuse the Jewish calendar with new meaning. The tens of thousands of pioneers who immigrated to the Land in the Second... Read More
It’s been a rough winter in Jerusalem: cold, windy, rainy. And although winter is Jerusalem isn’t as severe as the winters in New York, Boston, Chicago, or Minneapolis, there is something about Jerusalem that makes the rainy, windy winters feel more miserable than they actually are. Maybe it’s the slippery stone sidewalks that run around the city. Or perhaps it’s that so many of Jerusalem’s homes are poorly insulated. Possibly, it could be that we who live in Jerusalem are used to nine months of glorious weather and the brief winter months, by comparison, seem unduly harsh. Whatever the... Read More
Every 10 days, I get my hair cut. I don’t have much hair, and if I wanted to, I probably could do it myself. But instead of trying to see the back of my head in the bathroom mirror like a contortionist, I go to Daniel who owns a small barbershop on Azza Street – a five-minute walk from our apartment. It takes Daniel literally eight minutes to cut my hair – but we spend about half an hour together. Daniel understands just a bit of English, so we talk in Hebrew. He’s patient with my semi-fluent Hebrew and is pleased when he can correct me and introduce me to new words – such as “... Read More
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