I used to work at a synagogue in the Bay Area with a large emigre community. We had a full-time emigre coordinator whose job was to provide programming and educational support for the hundreds of [...]

In 1911, my grandpa Jake was born in the small Hungarian village of Torun in the Carpathian Mountains. While he was still a child, the village became a part of Czechoslovakia, and after World War [...]

This week’s Torah portion describes one of the most painful episodes in our people’s history. The context is important: Moses is away from the people, on Mount Sinai receiving instructions from God. The Israelites grow restless and [...]

This week’s Torah portion describes the special garments the priests were to wear when offering sacrifices on behalf of the children of Israel. We read that Aaron, the first High Priest, is to don a [...]

In his attempt to define the threshold test for obscenity, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously remarked, “I know it when I see it.” We’ve seen—and heard—a few things over the past few weeks that [...]

Ten years ago this Shabbat, our oldest daughter Isa (who just graduated college!) celebrated becoming bat mitzvah in Jerusalem. It feels like forever ago. So much has happened in our lives and in our world [...]

Crossing Over Together Almost a week has passed since we first heard about a synagogue under attack in Colleyville, Texas. Sadly, we certainly don’t need any more reminders about how rising antisemitism in America and [...]

Teach Like God For ten summers I studied at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem (SHI). I gathered with rabbis from around North America representing the diversity of the Jewish People: Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox [...]