After One-Hundred-and-Twenty: Reflecting on Death, Mourning, and the Afterlife in the Jewish Tradition
I know I’m not alone in wrestling with my own mortality. I was asked these questions many times during my rabbinic career as people aged and as loved ones died – but never did I think they related to me personally. Now I find myself looking for answers to these questions, and I’ve found answers in Hillel Halkin’s After One-Hundred-and-Twenty: Reflecting on Death, Mourning, and the Afterlife in the Jewish Tradition.
The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower
From drones to satellites, missile defense systems to cyber warfare, Israel leads the world in the development of high-tech weaponry, a legacy born of necessity. Since 1948, this country of eight million people has had to learn to adapt to changes in warfare and, in the process, has become a military superpower in innovation and efficiency.
It's Elul: 6 Ways to Get Ready for the High Holidays
Reform Movement Adopts Three New Resolutions
This week, the URJ's North American Board adopted three new resolutions, concluding the consultative and inclusive process that began before the Biennial. These resolutions add to the canon of hundreds of URJ resolutions that outline its values and priorities.
Were Shakespeare's Plays Actually Written By a Jewish Woman?
William Shakespeare's name appears on many of play, but no evidence demonstrates that he actually wrote them. Could they have actually been written by Aemelia Bassano?
On the Outside Looking In: Approaching Conversion
Next week at this time, I’ll be stepping into the mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath. It’s been a yearlong journey that will lead me to that holy space, one I’ll enter as a former Catholic/not-quite-Jew and exit as a Jewish woman – no longer an outsider.
My Father’s Journey on a Freedom Ride Bus
Jewish activism in the 1960s civil rights movement gained momentum when four Reform rabbis participated in the first Interfaith Freedom Ride on a Greyhound bus traveling from Washington, DC, through South Carolina, to Tallahassee from June 13-16, 1961. Freedom rides tested interstate public transportation hubs for racial segregation. The rabbis, Israel Dresner, Martin Freedman, Allan Levine, and my father Walter H. Plaut, were joined by eight white Protestant ministers, including prominent theologian Robert McAfee Brown, and six AME black ministers and NAACP activists.
David Bowie Was into Kabbalah: 5 Jewish Facts about the Late Icon
From his Ziggy Stardust alter ego to his latest album — a jazzy, avant-garde rock release called “Blackstar” released just two days before his death — Bowie racked up some interesting Jewish connections.
This New Black/Jewish MLK Day Song Will Blow You Away
You're sure to get chills when you watch Naturally 7 and The Maccabeats come together on "Shed a Little Light," filmed at the Lincoln Monument and the MLK Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Killing a King: Revisiting the Lessons from Rabin’s Assassination
The publication of Dan Ephron’s Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel is timely, coinciding with both the 20th anniversary of Rabin’s assassina