Author: Steve Lipman

He was always accessible and gracious—traits not to be taken for granted from someone who, because of his political prominence, could have saved his time for the TV networks and well-connected authors. 

Six middot lessons modeled by Senator Lieberman during his career

In the days and weeks after the Hamas massacre, Jewish students on campus started receiving chizuk (support) from the broader Jewish community. 

  A Kids Book About Perseverance By Yonina Schnall Lermer akidsco.com Yonina Schnall Lermer, a veteran teacher and literacy curriculum coordinator, wrote A Kids Book About Perseverance for youngsters who, facing a challenge, tell themselves “I can’t do this.” In thirty-two pages, she tells them—and shows them—how they can. From her years in the classroom, […]

“You don’t just go when it’s safe and pretty,” Katz asserts.

Where do you find so many green rain jackets on such short notice?

The Minchenbergs had offered to serve as a drop-off site for an impromptu “IDF Mezuzah Project,” a grassroots campaign that began in the wake of the Gaza War. Its goal: to provide mezuzot for the doorposts of every Israeli Army base, as a form of Divine protection for the soldiers in their ongoing battle against Hamas terrorists.

Stories of communities that came together

She thought she was taking a test for a blood donation. She ended up donating a kidney.

A few months before she graduated from Rutgers University last year, Ahuva Strauss had a geographic epiphany—down the street from the apartment where she lived were two hospitals. She was aware that the major institutions were there but she had given little thought to the patients inside. “I never realized how lonely some of them […]

‘There was no uniformity and there were many certifications that were questionable. The challenge was to set the standard.’ Which the OU ultimately did.

At a bar mitzvah in Englewood, New Jersey, in the mid-1980s, Rabbi Menachem Genack, early in his career as rabbinic administrator of OU Kosher, was introduced to Dr. Judith Leff, a biochemist who was then working as a researcher in molecular biology at the Albert Einstein Medical College of Medicine in the Bronx. The rabbi […]

Jewish Ukraine is a different place today than it was thirty years ago. A lot has changed.

Reichmann used his business and political connections to lobby on behalf of Jews throughout the Soviet Empire, leveraging his influence with world figures on behalf of unknown Jews.

Worried about the Pesach sized hole that enters your wallet each spring? Here’s how to shop smarter this year.

In this column, we highlight small and not-so-small acts of kindness that happen each and every single day.     A Warm Final Sendoff an a Below-Freezing Day  On a frigid Ontario afternoon in January 2019, more than 150 members of Toronto’s Jewish community stood on the open grounds of a snow-covered cemetery in the freezing […]

I had forgotten that you only get out of Shabbat what you put into it.

His financial outlook was clouded; with no store, he would have no income. Then the local Jewish community stepped in.

“There’s no question that Rabbi Goldzweig was a pivotal player in the development of kashrut in America,” Rabbi Israel Paretzky, an OU RC told Jewish Action in a 2011 interview. “He was the OU.”

Combatting sinat chinam by highlighting acts of kindness.

She had learned two expressions in Russian. “You are in a safe place.” And, “You are not alone.”

Despite Mom’s earlier Seder disinvitation, I got to spend another Pesach with her. This time, she did not object.

“There’s the Jewish People—and Jewish people,” the larger Jewish community and individual, often unsung Jews. “He understood both.”

Rabbi Miller played an active role as a volunteer, often as the public face and voice of the Jewish community, on behalf of the JCRC, Holocaust survivors, Soviet Jews and other causes, as well as several Orthodox and Zionist organizations.

Covid-19 has spurred an unprecedented interest in aliyah. Why?

“It’s a major game-changer,” restoring millions of dollars of potentially lost salaries to members of the Orthodox community.

Why camps play such an important role

“So, who’s your latest victim?” That was the sarcastic question a colleague at work—a Sabra who has picked up the snarky US sense of humor—would ask me every Thursday or Friday when he spotted me rolling a suitcase into our office. It meant I was going away for Shabbat. Single, I am blessed to have […]

“Rabbi, I prayed for my zeidy to get better, but he died. Didn’t God listen to my prayer?”

I wanted to make my extended time in our family home over Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah memorable. I didn’t realize how memorable Nature would make the chagim.