RJ Blog

by Aya Betensky In the early ’80s, in New Jersey, we “converted” from Conservative to Reform Judaism (a story in itself) and started going to Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple in New Brunswick. At our first Friday night ser­vice, we were amazed to find a woman cantor with a beautiful voice, who welcomed us by stepping down from the bimah and teaching the congregation a new song that would be sung later in the service. Lee Coopersmith imbued us with an aura of Shabbat beauty and community that we had been missing before. At these Friday night services I heard familiar [...]

by Suzi NeftTemple Sinai, Pittsburgh, PA I was scared to death! Coming from a violent marriage with a young son, Alex, who I was trying to protect and educate Jewishly. We practiced Jewish traditions at home and attended High Holiday services at my mother’s Conservative synagogue. Alex’s father, a non-Jew, agreed before marriage that our children would be raised Jewish, and Alex had been, until the end of the marriage. His father, who practiced no religion, suddenly began taking our child to church. Alex was confused and upset because he felt Jewish.   I had little money and was looking for [...]

by Amanda FrohmanHoly Blossom Temple, Toronto Ontario To touch someone’s life, to have one’s heart be touched…how often I longed to feel that special spark, to feel touched by God’s grace. In my imagination, a spiritual moment would assume the form of Divine intervention. But in my reflection, it was a simple class trip and the kindness and compassion of tender hearts that made me feel the aura of a Holy presence that has stayed with me forever. I was a French teacher in an International school which, from its inception, was in the vanguard of girls’ education. I taught [...]

by Deborah BaberTemple Emanuel, New York, NY At the end of October in 1984, I left Birmingham, Alabama after a fabulous, two-month stint working on a bound-for-Broadway musical while staying with my mother who resided there. Mom and I had been estranged for many years. But this visit was a breakthrough! We spent hours together talking, eating, laughing, living… and loving! Two weeks later on November 16, 1984 at 2:30 am I had been asleep for hours. I was a single woman, an actress (a bartender, a hostess, a waitress!), living alone in New York City… and my phone rang. My [...]

by Leon AdatoOriginally published on The Edible Torah For a long time, I carried around with me a very depressing mental image for the Beatles song “Blackbird”. I would relate it here, but I’ve been told by enough people that it ruined their enjoyment of the song so I usually just keep it to myself. Not that my mental image inhibited my own love of the song. I took a fond, if somewhat morbidly melancholy, pleasure in singing it and hearing it performed. But it was never a happy song. Then, when my son Joram (who is now 10) was [...]

by Carol Gunnerson Prelude to the dawn: Without an alarm clock, I have a habit of waking up early… between 4:30 a.m. and 6:30 a.m.  I do this because I love the peace and silence of those wee hours. I move about stealthfully… consciously… fixing tea without a sound. I don’t want any noises to disturb the gift of peace that is mine to savor!  I take my tea and sit outside in the stillness, opening to the Oneness I find there.  I am home in the Oneness. For me, this is the time when the very essence of creative [...]

by Rabbi Gary M. Bretton-Granatoor Vice President – Philanthropy, World Union for Progressive Judaism All stories that teach a lesson are “true,”but some are also factual.This story is true and factual…Based on an event that occurred in 1999   Although my role as Program Chair of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC) placed several responsibilities on my shoulders, my wife had one very important mission for me on my most recent trip to the Vatican. A co-worker and her husband were about to have a baby, and since they were devout Catholics, my wife thought it appropriate for [...]

by Joette AlkireTemple Emanuel, Kensington, MD Ours wasnʼt the only home hit by the VA-MD tornado on October 18, 1990, but our adorable daughters aged 4-1/2 and 15 months made the local news media come running to interview us. We answered their questions and thanked God that no one was injured. The back story, however, is nothing short of miraculous. At the very least, God was watching over us. It started around 11:30 that morning when I picked up our daughter Elise from nursery school. She had learned all about Johnny Appleseed and wanted me to plant an apple tree [...]

by Jessica Bernstein The night of my brother’s funeral, the moon was full – enormous and hanging low in the sky. More than twenty years earlier, when I was in college, Bob and I went on a bike trip through Northern Michigan.  One night we stood on the shore of Lake Michigan watching a sunset so late that you’d only see it in the far north. We saw a full moon rise over the lake. Later, he told me how each time he saw a full moon, he’d think about how many months it had been since the bike trip. [...]

by Paul Widem It was a most unusual and special Bar Mitzvah gift. Gifts often carry unique and special messages, and, in a sense, they are conversations that have the power to mold our character and beliefs. Such was the gift given to me by my parents on my Bar Mitzvah in years long ago in a  flowering synagogue called the First Hebrew Congregation of  Peekskill, New York My parents left a small shtetl near Pinsk, Russia–one of the great intellectual centers of Eastern European Jewish life — in the wave of Jewish immigrants to America in the early 20th [...]

by Lee Robbins My confirmation at Temple Emanu-El did not happen in the usual manner. Away at boarding school, I could not attend weekly Sunday school class with the other young people preparing for this rite of passage. Before the beginning of my freshman year in high school I went to see Rabbi Perelman, then senior rabbi of the Temple, and spoke to him of my desire to be confirmed.  I wanted to know if this was possible from a distance, outside the weekly class structure. I think he was astonished and surprised for this may have been the first [...]

by Sarita Dotan Our frenetic world is beset with difficult and complex issues and one within which all manner of things must (ostensibly) be dealt with immediately, if not sooner. In addition to the normal personal issues that are part and parcel of living, we are all concerned about global financial stability, terrorism and various other threats to our way of life. Moreover, with the technical ability to be electronically connected 24/7, we are not able to avoid these concerns for long. Perhaps as a consequence of all this, our world is, as well, a place that often stoops to [...]

by Cantor Alane KatzewURJ Worship and Music Specialist First ResponseAmidst the chase to catch the commuter train into NYC and the funk of waking early and without yet imbibing my first gulp of boldly brewed Starbuck’s, it was a day like any other. Stepping from the platform onto the train, for no particular reason I turned back just in time to see a passenger trip and begin to fall forward. I reached out my hands and caught her before she fell. Steadying and rearranging her olive colored burkha and hijab (head covering), my fellow traveler expressed her profuse thanks; I [...]

by Mike MorgulisHoly Blossom Temple, Toronto, Ontario, Canada “S’iz shver tsu zayn a Yid” – not only is it tough to be a Jew; it’s tough to remain a Jew!  I grew up in a Reform Jewish home, my father was a secular Jew and my mother was a keen convert with no personal heritage of Jewish traditions. My paternal grandparents didn’t talk about being Jewish, just Russian (although my grandpa would sometimes speak Yiddish when we visited the Negev Bookstore on Bathurst). My brothers and I learned Hebrew at shul; we all celebrated becoming Bar Mitzvah and participated in [...]