ARZA

The past year has seen an increase in tension – and even violence – at the Kotel or Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites. Last Friday, progressive Jews worldwide were disturbed to learn of protests and near-rioting as the Women of the Wall came to pray for Rosh Chodesh at the Kotel. On one [...]

By Loree B. Resnik Yes, I admit it. I am a woman, the oldest of the baby boomers, who struggled and championed women’s rights in America. I think my adult children and their spouses might secretly like to ask me to “give it up already,” “chill” or however one says such things today. Still, I [...]

By Rabbi Neal Gold I didn’t get the opportunity to watch President Obama’s important speech in real-time yesterday, but read the full text of it later in the afternoon.  I hope you get the chance to read it as well. A few observations: First, this speech should lay to rest any question of whether this [...]

By Resa and Stanley Davids The distance between Rome and Jerusalem (according to Wikipedia) can be calculated as 2307 kilometers, or 1434 miles, or 1246 nautical miles.  In 1862, Moses Hess saw those distances quite differently.  Though Hess’ name may not be familiar to most of us today, he nevertheless played a significant role in [...]

By Bill Hess After repeatedly bouncing off the seemingly impenetrable wall of the arcane, exceedingly accurate and lengthily described laws that open the third book of Torah, Vayikra/Leviticus, it is not difficult to understand why legions of rabbis and learned teachers flee from dissertations thereon. And to develop a Zionist theme from the sacrifices, much [...]

By Marlene Dodinval Chicago has lots of sports teams:  the Bulls, Blackhawks, Bears, Wolves, Fire and of course the Cubs and the White Sox.  Each team and sport has fans with varying levels of commitment and with different means of expressing their support.  Some attend games once or twice a year, others have season tickets. [...]

By Rabbi Jackie Mates-Muchin Praying with the Women of the Wall is a very unique experience. On Rosh Chodesh Adar, I joined 200 other people packed into the very back part of the women’s section with a dozen men standing on chairs on the men’s side in order to participate in the service. Most of [...]

By Didi Gilbert Though Parshat T’rumah provides instructions regarding the building of the Mishkan – the Tabernacle and the Aron HaKodesh, the container in which the Torah is to be kept and revered, the lessons to be derived from this parasha are much broader. Moses informs the people that they are each expected to make [...]

By Resa and Stanley Davids According to Wikipedia, Nate Silver is a statistician, sabermetrician, psephologist and writer.  Two words in the previous sentence were rejected by our Google spell-check; truth be told, we needed to track the meaning of those same two words in an online dictionary.  Silver became famous in the United States in [...]

By Sandy Tankoos The Israeli electorate has spoken and what they have said is a little different than what had been predicted.  Although Israel is a democracy, their system is quite different than ours here in the U.S.  In the United States we vote for a person who usually runs with the support of a [...]