Shimshonit
Reasons Why I Made Aliyah
One of my favorite bloggers, Treppenwitz, had a post yesterday beginning the saga of how he and his family made aliyah. While I’ve had this post in my blog bank for a few weeks now, I felt inspired by Trep’s story to put this up sooner rather than later.
Shortly after making aliyah with my family [...]
Taking It All Personally
Jewish tradition tells us that the Second Temple was destroyed as a result of sinat chinam, or baseless hatred. We mourn this destruction officially on Tisha B’Av, the full fast that falls on August 10 next month.
While "baseless hatred" sounds like a pretty extreme transgression of the Torah, what’s the opposite quality that we should [...]
Rabbi Stewart Weiss and the Rav’s Take on Conversion
As converts and would-be converts, most of our experiences of conversion are, understandably, from our own point of view. From where we stand, there are the texts and mitzvot to learn, the shul community to get to know, the rituals to incorporate into our lives. Through our eyes, the rabbi and other educators [...]
Israelis in Captivity
I received an email yesterday from my rav in America announcing a worldwide prayer/tehillim recitation on behalf of abducted Israeli soldier, Cpl. Gilad Schalit. At 11 AM (Eastern time) on Wednesday, 2 July 2008, Jews everywhere are asked to recite Psalm 121. (This translates into 8 AM on the West Coast, 4 PM [...]
The (non-)Future of Yiddish
“Why don’t you learn Yiddish?” my mother has asked me countless times. “If people don’t learn it anymore, it will just disappear.”
She’s right, of course. Aside from a few impressive efforts to fan the embers of Yiddish theater and music, or to consolidate the world’s diminishing supply of Yiddish books, Yiddish shows every [...]