Category: Opinion

(JTA) — Earlier this year, I used the findings of the Pew Research Center’s 2013 “A Portrait of American Jewry” to make projections about the future demographics of the Jewish population. I anticipated a small population increase by 2023 followed by steady decline for several decades following that — and a very sharp decrease in […]

(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — A long-awaited construction project at our Manhattan synagogue, Ansche Chesed, is about to begin. Off in the distance we can glimpse our expanded lobby with improved safety and disability access, our renewed social hall, and our comfortable and professional offices. Before we can build, we must demolish. For […]

This article first appeared on Alma. After being sent home from school, a life of relative COVID-ignorant bliss, I arrived in the ravaging chaos of the pandemic. My mother — the head of infection control and epidemiology for the largest public hospital in Chicago — was working all hours of the day. Whether it was […]

(JTA) — Do you want to know one small but powerful way we could make Jewish life more inclusive? Stop telling fat people about your diet and asking if they’d like to join you. Last year I launched Fat Torah, with the aim of confronting weight stigma in Jewish communal life and deploying Jewish tradition […]

This article first appeared on Kveller. On Thursday evening, as I was just about to close my computer, I saw the news alert from The New York Times: “Breaking News: At least 15 people are dead and dozens are injured after a stampede at a religious celebration in Israel.” A surge of panic ran through […]

(JTA) — When I was very young, what motivated me to go to shul on Shabbat morning was the fire station two houses away from the synagogue. My dad was the rabbi of the only congregation in Annapolis, Maryland, and shul attendance was a family affair. If I behaved during services, my big brother would […]

This article originally appeared on Kveller. What do bonfires, weddings and carob have in common? They’re all connected to the holiday of Lag b’Omer. While you may have never heard of this holiday, Lag b’Omer is popular and widely beloved in Israel — and it’s time we Americans learned to enjoy it, too. Below are […]

(JTA) — April 29 marks the 76th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau, the longest-operating Nazi concentration camp. A lesser-known part of that day is that Japanese-American troops played a key role in the liberation of Dachau and its satellite camps. Japanese-American soldiers also rescued thousands of survivors of a Nazi death march nearby, caring […]

Text Messages is a column, produced with The Jewish Week, sharing wisdom from the weekly Torah portion. (JTA) — When do you call the rabbi? Sometimes to complain. (We’re Jews, after all.) But usually, a life-cycle event has taken place. A birth, thank God. An impending wedding. An illness. Too often in the last year, a […]

(JTA) — In the partisan changeover that resulted from the 2020 U.S. elections, there were bound to be some tests and challenges for those of us who identify within the broad spectrum of “pro-Israel.” The first is now upon us: a proposed bill emerging in the House of Representatives that places a set of limitations […]