Do we need a Jewish pope?
We pray for a utopian period led by a messianic figure, but Judaism has survived and thrived by expressing itself in multiple forms, without a single leader or uniform approach
Palestinian terror wave has Israel’s rabbis searching for spiritual solutions
Their pictures and their names are burned on our hearts—victims of terrorism whose final moments we can’t even imagine. It’s in precisely these times that the job of spiritual leaders is both most challenging and most needed.
Israeli students attacked with firebomb in Manhattan
NEW YORK — A firebomb was thrown at two Israeli yeshiva students in Midtown Manhattan in an incident being investigated as a hate crime.
The attack, which occurred on Friday, was reported in New York media on Sunday morning.
The students, both 19, are studying at a Brooklyn yeshiva for one year, and often visit Jewish-owned businesses in the area to call on people to perform mitzvahs, the New York Post reported, citing community leaders.
The students, one of whom only speaks Hebrew, were not injured.
Book shows a lesser-known side of this rosh yeshiva
Rabbi Yehuda Amital (1924-2010) was a compassionate, charismatic and occasionally controversial leader of the National Religious (or modern Orthodox) Jewish community in Israel.
A Holocaust survivor, he was liberated at the end of 1944. He moved to Israel right away and served in the Israeli army in the War of Independence. He pursued a career in Jewish education, and in 1968, became a founder and rosh yeshiva (head of school) of Yeshivat Har Etzion, one of the first institutions set up in the territories that Israel won in the Six Day War.
Over one million expected to participate in this year’s Shabbat Project
Building on the momentum from last year’s inaugural Shabbat Project in Toronto, organizers are gearing up for another successful run that will bring thousands of Jews from across the religious spectrum together to keep Shabbat and take part in Shabbat-related programs.
A new perspective on the holidays
My daughter was too young last year to have any real sense of what she was hearing during the shofar blasts on Rosh Hashanah. But this year, approaching her second birthday, I tried to prepare her for the holiday’s aural experience. For a week leading up to the big day, we talked about the significance of the shofar and mimicked the three types of sounds she would hear in shul. On the way to synagogue for the first day of Rosh Hashanah, we reviewed the lessons of the previous week. She seemed to have it down.
Rabbi Paysach Krohn: become a giving person
Krohn is the author of 12 books and a lecturer on the subjects of ethics and spiritual growth
Easy desserts to sweeten your holiday meal
When you have a small someone in the household who wants to help you prepare dessert, the easiest thing to make is a dump cake.
Wrestling our way into the Jewish new year
This can be a complicated time of year for Jews. The High Holidays are filled with possibility, liveliness and people coming together, but also with struggle, and not just the kind of soul-searching and grappling inherent in the Days of Awe.
The five per cent day school tuition solution
With the busy Yom Tov season, I wouldn’t be surprised if many missed what is potentially the most significant Jewish news story of the year. I’m referring to the announcement that four Jewish day schools in New Jersey will be capping tuition fees at a maximum of 18 per cent of income, regardless of the number of children in a family.
