Digging For One’s Roots

In the world of new holidays known to many only through the internet, today is “Roots Day.” It appears as if this holiday derives from the fact that at this time of year there is such a…

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Waves of Aliyah

Although the State of Israel was officially established in 1948, the beginning of the mass return of Jews to the Promised Land began in the 1880s. Each distinct wave of immigration is now…

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The Netziv

At most yeshivot, the primary focus of study is on the Oral Law (as compiled in the Talmud and later legal compendiums), leaving the study of the written Tanach (the five books of…

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A Song For The Dove

Most songs written for Shabbat (zmirot) focus on either God’s resting from creating the world on the seventh day or on the relationship of the Jewish people to Shabbat. The Sabbath song…

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Golem

The story of the Golem of Prague is one of the best-known, fantastic and romantic Eastern European tales. It has been retold in both prose and play-form and is perpetuated in the oral…

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The Chassidim of Ger

While the Holocaust destroyed numerous chassidic communities, some of the surviving sects maintained their significance and impact after the war. Such was the case of the Ger Chassidim.…

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Rosh Hashana 5781-2020

“A Message for the High Holy Days: ‘Export, Export!’” (updated and revised from Rosh Hashana 5763-2002)   by, Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald   Beginning this Friday evening,…

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Do you Shukle?

If you’ve ever watched a traditional prayer minyan (quorum), or even just the prayers of a traditional Jew, you might wonder what all the motion and body movement is about. Forward-back,…

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Rosh Hashana 5783-2022

“Making Each Day Count” (updated and revised from Rosh Hashana 5764-2003) by, Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter (1847-1905), the second Gerrer rebbe and leader of Polish…

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Celebrating Bar Ilan University

Would you believe that the founding of Israel’s second largest university (33,000 students) was conceived “deep in the heart of Dixie"? Two years after Israel’s founding in 1948, the…

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