Can We Create a More Health-Oriented and Less Food-Centric Culture? Q: Does being frum put one at greater risk of obesity? A: When it comes to religion and health, there’s an odd paradox. Religion tends to be somewhat protective of health, except when it comes to weight. People who participate in religious activities tend to […]

Rosh Hashanah is associated with honey, symbolizing sweetness for the coming New Year. Honey cake and carrot tzimmes are traditional staples, but below are some recipes that will add special sweetness to your yom tov table! How Sweet It Is Honey has an indefinite shelf life. Store it at room temperature in a tightly closed […]

In the food industry, kosherization is a method to purge a vessel of non-kosher absorption. It is achieved through the use of boiling water or intense heat, depending on the manner of non-kosher use.

Another year—and another Rosh Hashanah—is upon us. Last year, we all made resolutions to change and, in many cases, we never did. How can we make this year different?

“Of course a person should do teshuvah, but I am a bit puzzled. I observe Shabbos, I keep kosher and taharas hamishpachah. I daven every day, I attend a Daf Yomi shiur and I am honest in my business dealings. What exactly should I do teshuvah for?”

It is late in the afternoon on Tishah B’Av day. Having just spent the past several hours in shul listening to brilliant insights from Rabbis Steven Weil, Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, Jacob J. Schacter and Yaakov Glasser (yes, my son), it is time to change focus. My family members and some of my neighbors and longtime […]

“Today is the Jewish New Year,” the Lutheran pastor would announce to the hospitalized patients at the edge of Brooklyn, as I stood silently at his—or sometimes her—side, white-knit kippah on my head and a small shofar in my hand, “and the rabbi has come to blow the ram’s horn.” It was an annual ritual […]

What are potential issues that can confront a religious Jew with regard to keeping kosher in the workplace?

Every year, as certainly as Rosh Hashanah occurs on the first two days of Tishrei and Yom Kippur occurs on the tenth, my friends and co-workers ask, “How was your davening?” And every year, just as certainly, I answer, “Ask me in a year.” I don’t mean to be flippant or preachy or elusive. It’s […]

I am an artist. Dealing with images is my stock and trade, and I know their value. That is why when I see the glaring omission of female images from many Jewish publications and dinner advertisements, my heart sinks. I worry that we are following in the chukkat hagoyim of the most radical in the […]

The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah, are fraught with tension as we try to focus on teshuvah. But how genuine is our repentance? How sincere is our quest? In her remarkable new book, Dr. Erica Brown plumbs the depths of human nature as she explores the questions that swirl around the teshuvah process.

Scott Rothstein was a very successful Florida attorney. His law firm, RRA, employed seventy lawyers. He made generous donations to political candidates—on both sides of the aisle. He bought multi-million-dollar mansions, expensive cars, planes and boat

A recent article in the New Yorker discussed the different schools of thought regarding technology available to us today. The “Never-Better” camp believes that with the rise of the Internet, we are on the brink of a new, better, more democratic world, connecting people in ways that will lead to greater freedom. Social networking and […]

Misconception: There is a Talmudic source for the common practice of kissing the mezuzah upon entering and exiting a room. Fact: There is no Talmudic source obligating one to kiss the mezuzah, although there may be a source for touching the mezuzah. Kissing the mezuzah seems to have been introduced by the Arizal (sixteenth century), […]

Toronto-based accountant Len Goldberg often tells friends and family that he runs a successful “sting operation.” A part-time apiarist for the past twenty-five years, Goldberg spends about two hours a week, from May through October, tending to the hives and the nearly quarter-million bees that he’s raised on a client’s property in Burlington, Ontario. After […]

Editor Nechama Carmel speaks with thirty-seven-year-old Rabbi Itay Meushar from Ma’ale Adumim, Israel who has been leading the Ashkenazic community in Peru for the past three years and is seeking to make a dent in the country’s rampant assimilation problem. Thirty-seven-year-old Rabbi Itay Meushar leads the Ashkenazic community in Peru. Courtesy of Rabbi Itay Meushar Jewish […]

The publication of Dr. Yocheved Debow’s book is a cause for celebration in the Orthodox Jewish community. For parents and educators, whose job is about to become much easier, it will be worth its weight in gold.

Yachad member Zev Diamond, who is in his twenties, marched proudly in the Israel Day Parade this past summer. But he didn’t have to wait for the next Yachad event to share his excitement; he had Facebook. Those with developmental and other disabilities are eagerly logging onto social media sites, welcoming this easy ticket out […]

Children (5-13) • Enforce the age requirements for sites. Children must be at least thirteen to join Facebook. • Have your children share their passwords with you. • Periodically review your children’s e-mails and web history. • Pay attention to signs of “grooming,” which is when someone initiates online contact with a young person with […]

Technology is changing faster today than at any other time in history. These developments affect our lives in many wonderful, and sometimes not-so-wonderful, ways. As we try to enrich our lives both by using technology and by refraining from using it as appropriate, we need to remember the Torah’s guidance as it applies to these […]

With the historic Siyum HaShas a few weeks behind us, Jewish Action surveys some of the resources and aids—both print and electronic—available to the Daf Yomi learner.

Shlomo Hamelech teaches us that there is nothing new under the sun. This phrase comes to mind when contemplating the ease of mass communication facilitated by social media. Centuries ago people similarly grappled with the advent of the printing press. On the one hand, the printing press led to the easy dissemination of books and […]

A well-preserved and partially reconstructed synagogue in Katzrin Archeological Park, one of the many batei knesset in use when Jewish life thrived in the Golan Heights during Mishnaic times. Photos: Hanan Isachar Many people are under the mistaken impression that the Jewish connection with the Golan Heights began with the Six-Day War in  1967. But […]

I was once told a charming story about a Chassidic rebbe, whose name I’ve conveniently forgotten, who prepared rigorously for every mitzvah. On erev Sukkos he sat up all night, staring at his esrog and lulav in the glass-enclosed case in his dining room, joyously waiting for the exact moment he could make the berachah. […]

American Orthodoxy has no sense of history. Records are not kept; documents go astray; historic figures who make significant contributions to the rebirth of Orthodoxy . . .  are quickly forgotten.”1 So wrote Yaakov Jacobs, editor of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Life magazine in the autumn of 1980. Distressed by the dearth of historical data […]