Beyond Bokser: 11 Ways to Go Green on Tu BiShvat and Year-Round
Years ago, on a cold and sparkly winter afternoon, I sat with my younger sister in the living room, both of us savoring the long, dark pods of chewy bokser we had saved from our Tu BiShvat celebration at Religious Scho
It’s Hard to be a Jew at Christmas, But Even Harder on Tu BiSh’vat
It is a truth universally acknowledged that it can be difficult to be Jewish at Christmas time. It has seeped into North American cultural consciousness so thoroughly that South Park even wrote a song about it, complete with trademark expletives.
Making Soup, Making Shabbat
When I was a kid, my family did not keep kosher. The closest we got was the story my mother told about how, when she was growing up, her father once yelled at her as she poured a glass of milk to go with her BLT sandwich: “We don’t mix milk and meat!”
On Simchat Torah, We Turn and Turn Again
I like the symmetry of the concept of return.
I like the idea that, no matter how linear we think we are, or time is, or God is, we tend to find a way back. Even God recognizes this view: Why else create t’shuvah (repentance) before ever creating the heavens and the earth?
Waving the Flag of Egalitarianism in Israel on Simchat Torah
One of the great paradoxes of being an American Reform Jew who chose to make aliyah (move to Israel) is that the whole concept of majority and minority is turned on its head. One the one hand, as a Jew, I am culturally and ethnically now part of the majority.
Purim, the Bible, and a Vengeful God
Cruelty and bloodshed abound in the Bible as, for example, the Pharaoh's ruthless treatment of his Israelite slaves and Moses' vengeful slaying of the Egyptian taskmaster in the Passover story.
The Four Children of Climate Change
We often talk at the seder about the Four Children: the Wise, the Wicked, the Simple, and the Silent children (or, as the last is often called, the Child Who Does Not Know How To Ask).
Kimchee on the Seder Plate: A Look at Multiracial Jewishness on Passover and Beyond
As a mixed-race couple with two young, mixed-race children living in a small community, we see an American Judaism that is ready to be open and responsive to the increasing demographic diversity in our country.
The Calendar, Yet Again
The number of months, with God, is 12 in the Book of God, the day that He created the heavens and the earth… The month postponed is an increase of unbelief whereby the unbelievers go astray; one year they make it profane, and hallow it another…
-Quran 9:36-37
We Get to Be Jewish
Growing up the child of a Jew-by-choice, everything about Judaism was a choice for us. For my mother, Judaism was a gift. She felt very proud to count herself among the Jewish people. She felt blessed to have the opportunity to do Jewish things.