Drawing Comfort from Tradition When Tragedy Strikes On the first anniversary of the Parkland shooting, we remember the lost lives and the lost innocence of…
The Worldwide Chavurah
The Torah of the ADA: A Reflection I am a lawyer. I graduated Harvard law school and have practiced law for major corporations and large…
What Is Our Responsibility to Future Generations? Learn Torah from NFTY-ite April Springer, winner of this year’s Blickstein D’var Torah Competition. 2/11/2019 April Springer Read…
What is Chutzpah and Why Do Jews Have It? It’s hard to find an exact English translation for chutzpah, but Steve Jobs’ marketing manager defined…
Yahrzeit for 14 Youths: Deaths We Can’t Live With Tonight marks the Sabbath before the yahrzeit for 14 youths and three adults shot to death…
My Love Affair with Cuba’s Jewish Community My love affair with Cuba’s Jewish community began in 2005, with my first mission to the country, where…
Fiddler on the Roof and the Joys of Yiddish You don’t have to know mamalushen (the mother tongue) to enjoy the hit musical Fidler Afn…
Hiding My Disability Kept Me from My Fullest Life At a very young age, I absorbed the message that illness and disability were things to…
How to Get It Just Right: Follow Instructions and Improvise In the Torah portion T’rumah, the word “tavnit” or “pattern” occurs three times, referring to…
#10YearChallenge: The Struggle for Equal Pay Remains Here’s what you can do to ensure that we continue to make progress toward pay equity. 2/05/2019 Ally Karpel…
Vandals Destroyed Our Sanctuary, but Not Our Spirit Recently, a bully breached the fence surrounding Congregation Natan Ya, a Progressive synagogue in Israel, and stuck…
Disability Awareness, Acceptance, and Inclusion: From Stigma to Pride Rabbi Edythe Held Mencher helps us understand why the language of disability is such a powerful determinant…
Cold: Prayer for a Chilly Shabbat Snow days can be fun; not so this kind of cold. It was colder in Chicago this week than…
Rediscovering My Grandmother’s Blintz Recipe and Old Memories of My Family While helping my mom clean her home, I found a printout of an email…
How Growing Up Jewish in the Bible Belt Helped Me Find my Faith I want to be open about my faith so that others may…
Dear Erich: An Exciting Addition to the Jazz Opera Repertory Jazz pianist and composer Ted Rosenthal conceived Dear Erich from 200 letters, written mostly by…
What Happens When a Holocaust Documentary Meets a Wartime Thriller The Invisibles tells the true story of four Holocaust survivors, two men and two women,…
How to Honor a Parent Who Can No Longer Remember Your Birthday Judaism places great importance on memory. But where do our obligations to remember…
We Need to End the Government Shutdown We sent a letter to Congress urging them to immediately pass legislation to fully fund the government and end the…
The Issue Remains: Two States for Two Peoples In a recent New York Times op-ed, Michelle Alexander simplified the endlessly complicated Israeli Palestinian conflict –…