Davening with Baby

Posted on: October 4th, 2012

Some 21 years ago I had the honor of being the stay-at-home father, while Nancy was the one with the grownup job that required leaving the house every morning and going to a remote work area that involved other people. With nothing to do but my weekly columns and phone interviews, I was the obvious [...]

Things to Do on Chol Ha’Moed: Tigers

Posted on: October 3rd, 2012

Here’s a bunch of tykes staring at a tiger at the Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo (full name: The Tisch Family Zoological Gardens in Jerusalem – The Biblical Zoo) during Chol Ha’Moed, the intermediary period between the two holiday ends of Sukkot. The glass partition provides an intimate closeness to the scary beasts that I haven’t experienced [...]

Designer Sukkah

Posted on: September 30th, 2012

I went looking for interesting Sukkah images online, and most of them repeated the familiar decoration themes, some with more natural ingredients, others with the more common, colorful paper cutouts. They were pretty, and I’m sure there are hundreds, if not thousands of Sukkot out there that are breathtakingly original and beautiful. But so far, [...]

Gulliver’s Sukkah

Posted on: September 28th, 2012

A Toldos Aharon child is playing with the frum equivalent of a doll house in Jerusalem. And, as you can see from the dangling power cord, his little marvel of a sukkah even has light in it at night. Perfection. Nancy and I received delivery on our first “eternal sukkah” yesterday, and since it was [...]

I Lashed a Guy

Posted on: September 27th, 2012

Here’s a Lelov chassid in Bet Shemesh, outside Jerusalem, getting 39 lashes on the eve of Yom Kippur. It’s part of the process of atoning for sins which used to be in wide practice even by non-chassidic Jews and is now not nearly as popular. We spent Yom Kippur in the holy, kabbalistically saturated city [...]

Miracle of the Crowded Pilgrims

Posted on: September 25th, 2012

The Mishna in “Chapters of our Fathers” 5:5 describes ten miracles that used to occur in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem (a couple of feet above the Western Wall in the picture). One of those miracle was that when the pilgrims—hundreds of thousands of them—stood in the Temple courtyard, they were crammed together, like the [...]

Portraits of a Heroine

Posted on: September 24th, 2012

Corporal S., hero of the Caracal Unit, in her own words:     “I ran under fire until I got to Netanel. But when I saw his condition, I understood it was impossible to save him. One of the terrorists exploded near us. I understood we were facing death. I took cover and thought about [...]

Shhhh…

Posted on: September 24th, 2012

Rest period in the pre-kindergarten class at the Jewish Educational Center, the precursor to the current St. Paul Jewish Community Center, circa 1939. It was built in 1930 at the corner of Holly and Grotto Streets. Programming combined recreation and education, and by the time this picture was taken, over 100 community groups used the [...]

Now, That’s an Esrog!

Posted on: September 23rd, 2012

It turns out this is what a mature esrog looks like, and the lemon-size fruits we’re all used to are baby esrogim, picked at a size that best fit in the palm of our hand. Only the Yemenites, I’m told, prefer the full-impact esrog, which, cone to think of it, could be used both for [...]

Spin the Chicken

Posted on: September 21st, 2012

A young Jewish man waves a female chicken over his wife’s head in the neighborhood of Meah Shearim, Jerusalem, as part of the Kaparot ritual. The rite is supposed to transfer her sins from last year onto the innocent bird, and the sinful chicken is then given to the poor. But, wait a minute, if [...]

Civilized Rage

Posted on: September 20th, 2012

In the midst of a sea of volatile rage—much of it well orchestrated—that’s sweeping the Muslim world over all the little slights that make Muslims angry – here’s something unusual: a group of Muslim Thai demonstrators outside the U.S. embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, last Tuesday. They’re probably just as upset as any Muslim over the [...]

Heroism on a Crowded Planet

Posted on: September 19th, 2012

Two weeks ago, Nadav Ben Yehuda received from President Shimon Peres the distinguished service award, for rescuing a Turkish climber in the Himalayas. Now Ben-Yehuda has climbed 5000 meters (16404.2 ft.) to the summit of Mount Kazbek in the former Sovier Republic of Georgia, and flew there a flag he had received from the President. [...]

Postcard from Israel – Hatzav

Posted on: September 16th, 2012

Drimia Maritima, or the Sea Squill, is known in Hebrew as Hatzav (from the word Hatzeva; quarrying, hewing or tunnelling) probably due to the ability of its long roots to penetrate cracks in rocks, and even widen them, in order to reach water or damp ground. In Israel, this tall, impressive plant – which flowers right [...]

Why We Blow Shofar

Posted on: September 16th, 2012

Here’s a lovely image of two kids blowing shofars on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year celebration, at the Saint Paul Jewish Community Center, circa 1990. We blow shofar 100 times, give or take, on each day of the two-day holiday of Rosh Hashanah, which is a two-day holiday not only in [...]

A Sweet New Year

Posted on: September 14th, 2012

At the Ramat Gan Safari, near Tel Aviv, the animals were treated to sweet fruits and honey in celebration of the approaching of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year). I went looking online for an answer to a troubling question: is honey good for bears? I mean, those beasts are heavy enough as it is, [...]

All You Need Is Breslov

Posted on: September 13th, 2012

A planeload of frum guys made its way on Wednesday to Uman, in the Ukraine, for the Rosh Hashanah festivities, despite some unexpected delays (wildcat strike) at Ben Gurion airport. As most everyone visiting these pages knows, Uman is the burial place of Reb Nachman of Breslov. Reb Nachman, the great grandson of the Baal [...]

Tagged and Released

Posted on: September 12th, 2012

A vulture is spreading its wings as it is released back into the wild in the southern Negev Desert near Kibbutz Sde Boker earlier this week. The Israeli nature and park authority recently trapped 96 vultures and released them after the birds had undergone examination and each received a ring and number. According to Birding [...]

Women Behaving Badly

Posted on: September 11th, 2012

Here is a WOW member wearing talit and tefillin blowing a shofar during prayer outside a police station in Jerusalem’s Old City where police detained four other WOWs at the Wailing Wall this summer. WOW stands for “Women of the Wall.” Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu of Arutz 7 reported on the August 19 incident: Police arrested [...]

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Housekeeping for God

Posted on: September 10th, 2012

The Wailing Wall’s Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz and his crew on Sunday removed thousands of handwritten notes placed in the crevices of the ancient Wall, just a stone’s throw down from God’s Mountain (which, in the recent and less recent past has been the site of real stones being thrown, in one direction—you guessed it, the one [...]

Selichot

Posted on: September 9th, 2012

Jewish men at Selichot services at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. Why do we call these days and these rituals “Selichot” – Pardons and Forgiveness, when we keep on announcing and confessing our sins? Asks my friend H. from Tzfat. Why don’t we call them Confessions? Because we assume that God has pleasure in forgiving [...]