This seems to be a season of anniversaries. My reading list (below) includes Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosney, which recounts the horrific Vélodrome d’Hiver roundup in Paris on July 16, 1942. Over 10,000 Jews were arrested, the majority being…

It’s no surprise that there exist synagogue buildings without congregations of Jews – we are a wandering people who have picked up and left our homes, sometimes in search of a better economic environment and sometimes under duress. Last month,…

I am thankful to be able to write yet another quarterly Rabbinic message (I’m actually particularly thankful to be writing this today because I’m getting over a bug which could have been much worse). The Talmud (B. Men. 43b) quotes…

“While your fire is burning, roast your pumpkin.” So said Rabbi Yohanan somewhat cryptically in Talmudic Tractate Sanhedrin (33b), but whatever he meant, I don’t think he was referring to a non-Jewish holiday at the end of October. It is…

An anonymous rabbi in the Talmud is quoted as saying, “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying.” OK, maybe that’s not in the Talmud but rather attributed to Woody Allen.…

I’ve always thought that Passover was a crumby holiday. Indeed, the floor is now littered with shards of matzah as I write this quarterly message on Day 6. I love the family aspects of the seder and the opportunity to…

This quarterly rabbi message is dedicated to the Jews of Brooklyn (and Beverly and I do own a copy of the book of that name edited by Ilana Abramovitch and Sean Galvin). Sadly, Beverly’s mother, Justine Flora Post, passed away…

I composed this quarterly rabbinic message immediately after dismantling our sukkah, and there is nothing quite like making me feel that the extended fall holiday season has come to an end as packing up the sukkah kit. Several years ago,…