Rosh Hashanah is usually associated with apples and honey, symbolizing sweetness for the coming New Year. In our family, honey cake, apple cake or strudel and a carrot tzimmes sweetened with honey are always on the menu. The following are recipes that include some of the special symbolic foods—the simanim—eaten on Rosh Hashanah: fish, pomegranates, […]
Rabbi Harvey Belovski’s article following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti teaches us how to properly respond to calamities of such proportion. It is near impossible to find adequate words to describe the scale of human suffering that followed in the wake of the massive earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12th, 2010. With over 200,000 […]
Facts and Figures about the New Year AT A GLANCE • 5771 has 385 days, including 55 Shabbatot, the longest possible year in the Jewish calendar. Calendar • 5771 is a 13-month year, known as a Jewish “leap year” (shanah me’uberet), in which the month of Adar is doubled (intercalated). • The Jewish calendar works […]
Warsaw Photo: Ahron D. Weiner/www.ahronphoto.com The big news in Krakow’s Jewish community last year didn’t make the news. A young Jewish couple got married. The bride and groom, typical of Polish Jews in their twenties, had been raised without a Jewish education; they eventually discovered their Jewish identities, learned about Judaism and decided they wanted […]
Miriam inside the gates of the White House. Courtesy of Miriam Shapiro The invitation finally came, but unfortunately it was on Shabbat. I’ve never had such anxiety about opening a letter before, but then again, I have never before received an invitation from the White House. It was very strange to think that […]
The Mind of the Mourner: Individual and Community in Jewish Mourning By Dr. Joel B. Wolowelsky / OU Press The cycle of life inevitably includes death. Births, weddings, and other celebrations are only one side of our experiences as we make our ways through life. Mourning is universal, and all Jews need to know how […]
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, kindly agreed to be interviewed for this special section of Jewish Action exploring our responsibility to the broader community. The Chief Rabbi has spent his life in the public arena, influencing society at large and providing a living example of the Torah’s universal […]
Frank Buchweitz’s office at the Orthodox Union headquarters in downtown Manhattan is small, his desk crowded but not disorderly. A dry-erase board on the wall across from him has every square inch scrawled over in purple marker: Call Rabbi G. Confirm appointment with Rabbi S. Follow up on printing of brochure. “Welcome to my world,” […]
Dr. Rick Hodes, an Orthodox Jew who lives in Addis Abeba, examines a young Ethiopian boy. Courtesy of JDC From outside, the medical clinic of the Mother Teresa mission in Addis Abeba looks like a rundown warehouse, a block-long concrete building with crumbling walls. Inside, it looks like an emergency Red Cross shelter set up […]