ARZA

By Anat Hoffman Talk radio is very popular in Israel. Animated debates on every topic under the sun fill the airwaves every day. One station, Kol BaRama, a station with a large Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) listenership, has the practice of not allowing women to speak on air. They say this is to respect the feelings of [...]

By Rabbi Stacey Blank I am back…after a few month hiatus.  A short explanation of what happened: As my readers may know, last summer I started working at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem.  Along the way, I became involved in young children/ family Shabbat programming  (Among other things, I have been living a long-time dream [...]

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 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 [...]

Today is Election Day in Israel, and members of the Kibbutz Lotan community are taking part in the process. While adults vote in the national elections, the kids are learning how the system works by running mock elections in their groups. Community members are also voting for new leadership of the kibbutz. It’s a very [...]

By Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie This article was originally published on Haaretz.com. “In your post-election Knesset speech, address directly the Reform and Conservative majority of American Jews – the heart of our Jewish family and the core of Jewish support for Israel – and who are finished being understanding and patient while Israel’s official representatives [...]

By Rabbi Jack Alan Luxemburg Adonai spoke to Moses, saying:  “Go and tell Pharaoh, King of Egypt, to let the Israelites depart from his land.” But Moses appealed to Adonai, saying: “The Israelites would not listen to me; how then should Pharaoh heed me, a man of impeded speech!” (Exodus 6:10-12) Rabbi Samuel Mohilever (1824-1898) [...]

By Susan Fritsch Cohen The following poem was written by Susan Fritsch Cohen on a recent trip to Israel with Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation. Of the trip, Susan said, “Our congregational trip had a transformative effect on me — it solidified my connection with Israel and with the community I traveled with, and that inspired me [...]

By Persephone Rivka and Sophie Vener In permaculture, Bill Mollison advises all gardeners and farmers to live in a tent on their land for a year before they start their design for one reason: observation. When immersed in a place, one can best observe important elements such as the amount of rainfall, where the water [...]