Posted on: February 24th, 2010

Mishenichnas Adar Marbim B'Simcha scream the colorfully illustrated posters hanging in Jewish homes and synagogues all over the globe during the month of Adar, in literal affirmation of our escalating sense of joy.

Posted on: February 10th, 2010

It sounds like a contradiction in terms. An oxymoron. If only it were. Jewish anti-Semitism is a modern disease. The world is experiencing an explosion of it. Among the most malicious and venomous of all bigots, Jewish anti-Semites are at the forefront of just about every smear campaign against Israel and other Jews.

Posted on: February 3rd, 2010

There are only a handful of mitzvot about which the Torah hints to their reward and even fewer about which we are told precisely what the reward will be. One of these is kibbud av va'em, honoring our parents, the fifth of the Ten Commandments given at Sinai.

Posted on: January 27th, 2010

I see him now in my mind's eye. He is sitting at his desk in his office at The Jewish Press, a Gemara open before him, other scholarly tomes on the side, engaged in what he loved best: learning Torah.

Posted on: January 20th, 2010

No Jews are as relentlessly reviled as the Jews of Hebron. Vilified as the pariahs of the Jewish people - "zealots," "fanatics" and "fundamentalists" who illegally "occupy" someone else's land - they are the militant Jewish settlers whom legions of critics in Israel, the United States and throughout the world love to hate. It is seldom noticed that their most serious transgression, settlement in the biblical Land of Israel, defines Zionism: the return of Jews to their historic homeland.

Posted on: January 13th, 2010

The term "Renaissance man" is used to describe a person who excels in a wide variety of subjects or fields. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach's biography of his father, Rav Dr. Yoseph (Joseph) Tzvi Carlebach (1883-1942), provides fascinating information about the life of a man who deserves to be described as a Renaissance rabbi.

Posted on: January 6th, 2010

When the sons of Jacob went to Egypt for food they became victims of a cruel ruse. As we recently read in the weekly Torah portion, when the provisions the brothers had acquired were loaded on horse and wagon for the return trip to Canaan, the Egyptian viceroy's cup was stealthily planted into the sack of the youngest, Benjamin.

Posted on: December 30th, 2009

For all the undoubted statesmanship implicit in Arthur Balfour's Declaration of November 1917, promising "a National Home for the Jewish People," Britain has never been much more than a fair-weather friend to Jewish national aspirations.

Posted on: December 16th, 2009

On Rosh Hashanah it is a mitzvah to assume a bowed posture as we offer tearful prayer to God and beg for His mercy and forgiveness. We are hopeful that our humility and remorsefulness will earn us a favorable verdict, but should we, Heaven forbid, fall short, Hashem in His infinite kindness extends our time of teshuvah through the duration of Chanukah, when it is a mitzvah to light the Chanukah candles that give rise (literally) to the flames that shoot straight upward, in affirmation of our spiritual ascent.

Posted on: December 9th, 2009

Various types of fruit cross our doorstep during the course of the Jewish year. But for me, the symbol of Judaism is the apple. Not the Rosh Hashanah apple dipped in honey but the one I learned about from my father, which began a chain of events that became a lesson of faith during the darkness of the Nazi years.

Posted on: December 2nd, 2009

Once upon a time, your bubbie would have cooked up her flavorful masterpieces by throwing in a pinch of this, a handful of that, recreating recipes passed down from her own bubbie, which she had learned at her mother's side.

Posted on: November 25th, 2009

Between 1920 and 1944 there were nearly fifty attempts on the life of Adolf Hitler. Many of the would-be assassins sacrificed their own lives as a result of their determination to free the world of one of history's worst monsters.

Posted on: November 18th, 2009

Editor's Note: On Nov. 26, 2008 - the Hebrew date was Cheshvan 29, which this year fell on Monday, Nov. 16 - Islamic terrorists went on a savage killing spree in Mumbai, India, murdering 179 people including Chabad emissaries Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg. The following tribute to the Holtzbergs was written by Rabbi Holtzberg's sister.

Posted on: November 11th, 2009

Next week marks the 32nd anniversary of Anwar Sadat's visit to Jerusalem, an event that set into motion a process that would result, nearly a year and a half later, in the signing of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

Posted on: November 4th, 2009

With the history of twentieth-century science and technology largely a saga of Jewish accomplishment, in retrospect it might seem foreordained that after World War II the rising Jewish nation in the Middle East would emerge not only as a financial power but also as a scientific and technological leader.

Posted on: October 21st, 2009

Fall arrived late this year in Budapest, where I am visiting from Israel, and it is still very warm on Yom Kippur. The largest Orthodox Yom Kippur services in the city are being held in a downtown hotel. A plaque marking what had been the offices of controversial Judenrat leader Rudolf Kastner is on a building just a few steps away.

Posted on: September 30th, 2009

The following is the complete transcript of Prime Minister Netanyahu's address to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, Sept. 24.

Posted on: September 23rd, 2009

If only each of us paid heed to the words of the powerful prayer we silently read through remorseful tears, perhaps we would think twice before allowing negative emotions - such as envy - to bring us to ruin.

Posted on: September 16th, 2009

Melitz (or Mielic) was a small shtetl in Poland. The following article is based on authentic Yiddish quotes from the original Melitz archives (courtesy Yad Vashem in Jerusalem). All the names are real.

Posted on: September 9th, 2009

"I was arrested by the Gestapo on the 9th of September 1939, and taken out of the house to a prison in Frankfurt a/M. There I met quite a number of people in the same situation who had been arrested in and around Frankfurt and they knew as little as I did about what was happening, except that we have been arrested by the Gestapo."