Hanukkah & Christmas: Can We Celebrate Both?
For parents of different faiths, December often brings holiday challenges. For divorced parents with joint custody, these challenges can be amplified.
Even During Winter Break, Every Day Is Jewish
It’s school vacation, the end of the calendar year, and for many it is family vacation time. Why write a blog entry during school vacation?
Early Hanukkah in 2013: Jewish Calendar Fun
Whenever I'm asked if the Jewish holidays are coming early or late this year, I promptly answer that they'll be coming on time. And that's partially true. Rosh Hashanah will always arrive on the first day of the Jewish month of Tishrei just as Hanukkah will always begin on the 25th of Kislev.
Miracles: They're Not Just for Hanukkah Anymore
I’m not even certain of the year, but it was sometime after the tattoo and before the death march. Aron Lieb was in his early twenties, but he felt elderly. He was working in a coal mine, forced by the Nazis to supply fuel for their war effort.
Leading a Passover Seder: The Freedom to be Creative!
I do not have enough fingers and toes on which to count the various kinds of Passover seders I have participated in or led. So many have been close to my heart, building and reinforcing my Jewish identity year after year.
A Season to Remember the Hungry
Carton upon carton of matzah greeted me as I entered the grocery store this morning.
Opening the Door, at Passover and Always
There is a moment during the N'ilah service on Yom Kippur that stays with me, always. I want to say that it haunts me, but that's really not the right image. It's more a flooding, a rushing-out-and-rushing-in-at-the-exact-same-moment kind of thing.
“Let all who are hungry come…” Passover: A Special Opportunity for Jews by Choice
Reform Judaism's deep commitment to outreach and inclusion, both of Jews–by–choice and interfaith and multi–cultural families, is a core value rooted in the historic development of our Movement.
Reminiscences From a 1960s Brooklyn Passover
I grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, in a predominately Italian neighborhood in which a prosciutto ball was more common than a matzo ball. My mother maintained a proper Jewish home where we observed Shabbat and celebrated holidays as a family.