Chayei Sarah 5783-2022

“The Torah’s Recipe for Finding a Proper Mate” (updated and revised from Chayei Sarah 5763-2002) by, Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald One of the critical issues facing contemporary American…

Read More

What and When

What and When Like Chanukah, Purim is a Rabbinic holiday in that it is not mentioned in the Five Books of Moses (although some…

Inauguration Oil

Elected U.S. presidents are inaugurated on January 20th. But, it wasn’t always that way. The Congress of the Confederation set March 4, 1789, as the date for “commencing proceedings” of…

Read More

From Midnight to Noon

Frank Sinatra famously sang that New York is a “city that never sleeps.” However, of all the sleepless nights, New Year’s Eve is Gotham’s most awake night, as tens of thousands often…

Read More

Rabbi Shmuel Salant

On the 29th of Av, 1909, corresponding to August 16th, Rabbi Shmuel Salant, Jerusalem’s long-time Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, passed away. Rabbi Shmuel was born in 1816 in Bialystok, then…

Read More

From Midnight to Noon

Frank Sinatra famously sang that New York is a “city that never sleeps.” However, of all the sleepless nights, New Year’s Eve is Gotham’s most awake night, as tens of thousands often…

Read More

Lions and Jerusalem Day

The original city of Jerusalem, conquered by King David from the Jebusites, is now known as Ir David, situated in the Silwan neighborhood, south of the Temple Mount. Over time, Jerusalem…

Read More

A Crime of Stalin

In 1981, PEN International (an organization of poets, essayists and novelists advocating for freedom of expression and human rights) declared November 15 as the Day of the Imprisoned…

Read More

Harem Power

The place: Istanbul/Constantinople.  The Time: The Sixteenth Century                        In the sixteenth century, the…

Read More

Reb Yaakov

In traditional circles, leading rabbinic personalities are often referred to as gedolim, which can best be translated as “great ones.” Those who acquire this title are usually renowned…

Read More