Tag: Judaism
Tradition or tragedy?
I am writing these lines from the United States, where I am nearing the end of my latest speaking tour. I’ve been to New York, Toronto, Detroit, Philadelphia, and now Miami.
Coming from South Africa,...
The attitude of gratitude: Jewish insights to share at your Thanksgiving table
Thanksgiving. They got it from us.
The evidence: Things they don’t teach you in school, like the Pilgrims modeling their autumn thanksgiving holiday after the Jewish harvest holiday of Sukkot, celebrated just a few weeks...
The very first ‘shidduch’
On several recent flights in the United States, I was rather surprised, and somewhat bemused, to see full-page ads in the airline magazines for a matchmaking service. In fact, there was more than one...
Archaeology is a big problem for the Palestinian cause
Israeli archaeologists in Jerusalem found a 2,700-year-old stone seal last week near the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. It’s just a few inches in diameter, but it’s a big deal for Zionism—and another blow to the Palestinian...
This failure will not define us
Our hearts hurt. Our pain is real. It feels like failure.
For 330 days, Hersh Goldberg-Polin languished in the dark. For 330 days, he fought back against despair and kept striving for life. For 330...
‘Strange turn of events made me do it,’ rabbis say of penning Oct. 7...
One of the images in a mournful poem by the seventh-century rabbi Eleazar ben Kalir, which is a central kinah prayer chanted on the Tisha B’Av fast day, refers to the silenced words of Temple singers.
Giving literary form...
A Filipino singer’s journey to Judaism in Israel
He had grown up in a swanky northern Tel Aviv home adopted by a secular Israeli family, alongside his Filipino single mother who is a foreign worker.
Fluent in Hebrew, he was a semifinalist in...
Sufis and Kabbalists and their vision of the world
Religions and the conception of God
Religions do not have the same conception of God. The Christian triune God is not the God of the Qur’ân or the Torah, and the personal God of the...
Archaeology, Passover and Zionism
Israeli archaeologists in Jerusalem recently found a 2,000-year-old clay token that was used in connection with offerings at the Second Temple in Jerusalem. The four-inch token may seem small, but it’s actually a very...
Israeli soldiers recite blessing on Gaza fruit trees
Israel Defense Forces troops on Wednesday recited Birkat Ha’Ilanot, the seasonal blessing on blossoming fruit trees, in the Netzarim Corridor that splits the Gaza Strip.
According to Jewish law, if one sees fruit trees budding...