Yom Kippur 5772-2011
"The Magic of the Day of Atonement" by Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald The Jewish calendar has an abundance of "propitious" or "favorable" times and occasions. Nissan, the month of Passover, is…
Summer Camp
The end of the school year is upon us, and across the country, many parents are packing their children’s trunks for summer camp. The world of Jewish camping began as a reaction to…
A Light Unto the Sunshine State
What U.S. cities enjoy the largest Jewish populations? You probably included New York, Los Angeles and Miami, which are indeed the three cities, in order, with the largest Jewish…
Meet Me at the JCC
If you ask a cross-section of Jews what they associate with the “JCC,” you may get a variety of answers. That is because the JCC offers a large swath of services to a very large variety…
The Great Jewish Tenor
There was a time, in the first half of the 20th century, when chazanut (cantorial/synagogue music) was the rage in the American Jewish community. In fact, there were celebrity chazanim…
Grandmaster R
When Szmul Rzeszewski (1911-1992) was five years old, his father showed him how to play chess. Three years later, the boy was a recognized child prodigy who gained acclaim giving…
Jews in Early Minnesota
It is often surprising to realize just how recent it was that the majority of the United States was wild, unsettled territory. Minnesota, which became the 32nd state on May 11, 1858, was…
A Man of His Own
One does not often hear of a decorated soldier from the United States army choosing to move to the German Democratic Party (East Germany under Communist rule). Stefan Heym, however, did…
Summer Camp
The end of the school year is upon us, and across the country, many parents are packing their children’s trunks for summer camp. The world of Jewish camping began as a reaction to…
The First Advisor on Jewish Affairs
In 1942, after first serving as a rabbi in Buffalo, New York, and then in Chicago, Illinois, Rabbi Judah Nadich (Baltimore 1912 - New York 2007) enlisted in the United States Army as a…