Bread and Jam: A Story of Two Families for Holocaust Remembrance Day
During World War II in Lithuania, the penalty for hiding Jews was death. Nonetheless, Jura’s family extended a helping hand to mine.
Facts Make You Free: A Reflection on the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz
Today, as the world marks the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I am thinking of my father, of blessed memory. He was among the Jews forcibly marched through the camp's entrance gate under the cynical Nazi motto: Arbeit Macht Frei, Work Makes (You) Free.
Discovering Israel Beyond Its Borders
Growing up in rural Massachusetts, Judaism held a much different context in my life than it does now. Until college, I did Judaism, mimicking the motions of being a "good Jew." I didn't combine milk and meat in my house because my father told me not to.
More Than Words on a Page: Social Justice in our Prayer Books
What an Atheist Belgian Musician Taught Me about Judaism
As a teenager, I would sit on my bedroom floor listening to old records of Belgian singer-songwriter, poet, and performer Jacques Brel. I didn’t need to keep a journal, because his lyrics wove together everything I felt at the time. Brel had a fire within, and his anger, longing, passion, and truth blazed through every word he sang. His music, raw and real, transformed and fed my soul; it informed and shaped who I am today.
What I'll Never Forget about My Visit to Majdanek
I recently visited Majdanek, a concentration camp in Poland, with my classmates. Afterward, I wrote this piece - part poem and part essay - about what spoke to me there.
How do Reform congregations commemorate Kristallnacht?
Kristallnacht, which literally means, “the night of broken glass,” occurred on the night of November 9, 1938, and marks the beginning of the Holocaust. On Kristallnacht, Jewish homes, synagogues, and businesses were destroyed by the Nazis and the streets in Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe were covered with glass from the shattered windows of synagogues, Jewish homes, and businesses.
You Are What You Wear
He shall be dressed in a sacral linen tunic, with linen breeches next to his flesh, and be girt with a linen sash, and he shall wear a linen turban. They are sacral vestments; he shall bathe his body in water and then put them on. (Leviticus 16:4)
A few years ago, I was in Jerusalem in a Chasidic neighborhood, surrounded by stores carrying tallitot, kippot, and all sorts of Judaica. To my utter shock, prominently displayed in one store's window was a bright pink tallis! I went inside and started talking to the owner, a Chasid in full regalia: black coat, knickers, side curls, and fur-trimmed shtreimel hat. "Who would buy a pink tallit?" I asked. "A bat mitzvah girl of course," this Chasid said, with no hesitation. ". . . no, not the girls in my community," he added, "but in yours, sure, why not?"