This Surgery Is Elective

In the late twentieth century there was, according to anecdotal evidence, an epidemic of “deviated septum” among American Jewish girls. The implication, along with many not-so-funny…

Read More

Rabbi and Statesman, Rabbi Moses Schorr

Rabbi Moses Schorr was a passionate academic who dedicated most of his indefatigable energy to the Jewish people. Born on May 10, 1874, in Pryemysl, Galicia, when it was still part of…

Read More

What Not To Buy

The joyous holiday of Passover is now over. While one’s instinct might be to immediately run out to the supermarket and restock the pantry shelves with bread, snacks and all the desserts…

Read More

How Pharaoh Enslaved the Israelites

While reading the Book of Exodus, one might wonder at the swift descent of the Jewish nation from being the privileged family of the Viceroy, Joseph, to becoming downtrodden and abused…

Read More

Beauty of the Book

Illuminated manuscripts inlaid with gold or silver leaf and spectacularly illustrated are most often associated with the Medieval church (the Gospels, Psalters, etc), where texts were…

Read More

The Meaning of “Lamed”

Today’s Treat is brought to you by the Hebrew letter lamed and the number 30, as that is its value in gematria (a mystical system of understanding deeper meanings through numeric…

Read More

Tu b’Shevat is Coming

While it may seem as if winter has just begun, it may be time to look beyond the turbulent weather and see that spring is just around the corner. You might wonder how one can possibly…

Read More

Painting Our People

Born on December 26, 1902, in Rahachow, Belarus (in the Pale of Settlement), Anatoli Lvovitch Kaplan was a Jewish painter who celebrated his Jewish heritage and the Jewish world in his…

Read More

Challenge of Fitting In

The weekly Torah reading of Mikeitz (Genesis 41:1-44:17), which almost always coincides with Chanukah, tells the story of the rise of Joseph, the son of Jacob, from slave to…

Read More

All-American Giver

Mervin Pregulman earned his initial fame as a college football star, but his real success was achieved later as a man of business and as a philanthropist. Born in Lansing, Michigan, on…

Read More