My Summer of Remembering
With my mother's death earlier this summer, I've become my family's "Keeper of the Yahrzeit List." So, while some of my friends may be having a summer to remember, I seem to be having a summer of remembering.
Galilee Diary: An evening in Levinsky Park
by Marc Rosenstein
(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Galilee Diary)
Galilee Diary: Pilgrims
by Marc Rosenstein
(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Galilee Diary)
Galilee Diary: Red hot chile peppers
...We remember the fish that we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic. Now our gullets are shriveled. There is nothing at all! Nothing but this manna...
-Numbers 11:4-6
Galilee Diary: Summer holiday
It was forbidden to allow the posthumous destruction of Man, God, and - this even for the most secularist of Jews - that hope without which a Jew cannot live, the hope which is the gift of Judaism to all humanity.
Galilee Diary: Summer holiday II
...Zebulun did not dispossess the inhabitants of Kitron or the inhabitants of Nahalol; so the Canaanites dwelt in their midst, but they were subjected to forced labor.
83 is the New 13: Why Have a Second Bar Mitzvah?
Inspired by Stan, our congregation's 83-year-old bar mitzvah boy, I’m thinking that I may not wait until I turn 83 to recreate some part of my entry into adulthood, according to Jewish tradition, on an upcoming Friday night.
11 Ways to Celebrate Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month in Your Synagogue
In honor of Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion Month, we offer a few suggestions to help congregations adopt further awareness and understanding of disabilities.
Galilee Diary: Dream Deferred
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
(Langston Hughes, “Harlem”)
Recently I began to volunteer once a week, assisting the English literature teacher in a nearby Arab high school. I’ve known the teacher, and the principal, for many years, through arranging encounters for their students with Jewish visitors, and this seems like a good way to stay in touch and involved. My first assignment was to present a background lesson to two 10th-grade classes studying a poem by Langston Hughes (“the poet laureate of Harlem,” who died in 1967). This assignment meant covering slavery, emancipation, the Civil War, Jim Crow, and the civil rights struggle, in simple English, assuming almost no historical background, in 40 minutes. Interesting challenge.
The Israel/Syria Story No One is Talking About
This story of Israel’s diversity, coexistence and humanitarian aid as evidenced by the Galillee Medical Center community moves me, and especially now, I feel it is important to share it with others.