One of the first Yiddish words any new office staff at Tiferet learns is schnorrer. A shnorrer is a beggar or more accurately a freeloader. No different than any other synagogue in Dallas, Tifferet is not immune to schnorrers. While schnorrers come in all ages and sizes, they typically share one thing in common. They are not Dallasites. Schnorrers hail […]
My Uncle Morris would have been 102 last week (according to the Jewish calendar). Uncle Morris owned a General Store that he purchased from his father. Uncle Morris’ General Store was in the “shtetl” of Langenburg, Saskatchewan. Uncle Morris and Auntie Belle were the only Jews living among a predominantly German population. Many years ago, Uncle Morris shared with me […]
Just under two months ago, Father Bruce M. Shipman, Episcopal chaplain at Yale University, wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times in response to an Op Ed by Deborah Lipstadt. Father Shipman has had good reason to regret doing so ever since. Ms. Lipstadt, an American historian of renown, brought to light the rising incidents of […]
It’s been 50 years since the songwriting duo of Burt Bachrach and Hal David composed what was to become a number one hit, There is Always Something There to Remind Me. Obviously it was a song that dealt with a relationships, a special one at that. Yet relationships need not be between two people. Relationships can and do exist between […]
The Fiddler turned fifty last week. After its September 23rd debut on Broadway half a century ago, perhaps it’s time that the Musical based on the writings of the Yiddish author undergo a Cheshon HaNefesh or serious soul searching, particularly since we find ourselves in the time period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. When Fiddler opened, (Jewish) American authors […]
