It was more than with a modicum of interest that I read about Rabbi Mendel Alperowitz setting forth together with his wife Moussie and their two toddler children from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the bastion of Lubavitch Hassidim to serve as the sole rabbi of the great state of South Dakota, where he will minister to its Jewish population of 1,200 […]
It’s high time that a Mah Nishtanah be applied to Veteran’s Day. With American involvement in World War I having begun just under a century ago (April 1, 1917), it’s high time that we American Jews approach Veteran’s Day having learned about the involvement of at least one of our people who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for […]
Predictably, the visit by Pope Frances to Auschwitz this past Friday was on the radar screens of more than a few Jewish organizations. Some of these organizations were hoping against hope that as result of this visit, the Pontiff will break with the policies of six predecessors dating back to immediately following the end of World War II and order […]
In this month’s issue of JAMA (Journal of American Medical Association) a new study was published that finds that those who attend more than one religious service each week had a 33 percent lower risk of premature death than those who do not. Four Harvard University researchers analyzed 16 years of data (1996-2012) collected from 75,534 women of whom 1,700 […]
Oifen Ganniv brent dos Hittel is a fabulous Yiddish saying that came to mind recently, when I read that Zbigniew Ziobro, Poland’s Justice Minister is planning to unveil plans to make it illegal to refer to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka and Sobibor as Polish Death Camps. Literally translated, the aforementioned Yiddish aphorism tells us that the hat worn by the thief burns […]
I attended a Baptist memorial service last Friday. For me, it was a most positive experience — one that I recommend to other rabbis and other Jews, as well. Having listened as objectively as possible to the minister, from a Baptist perspective I cannot help but feel that he is deserving of a big Yasher Koach for doing an excellent […]
