Jewish Treats

Chanukah and Divine Order

Chanukah always overlaps with at least one Shabbat (if not two), and since Chanukah begins on the 25th of Kislev and lasts for eight days, the holiday always coincides with the…

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Jewish Treats

When Adar Begins

The month of the second Adar begins today as this year on the Jewish calendar is a leap year. About Adar, the twelfth month of the Jewish calendar year (in non-leap years), the Talmud…

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Jewish Treats

Purim Narbonne

During the holiday of Purim, celebrated just last week, Jews around the world commemorated the salvation of the Jewish people from physical decimation. Because Haman had such great…

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Jewish Treats

Great Scots

The story of the great masses of Eastern European Jews who arrived in New York and settled on the Lower East Side of Manhattan is more than simply conventional history. It is now regarded…

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Jewish Treats

The Book of Ruth

Ruth was the Moabite wife of Machlon, one of the two sons of Elimelech and Naomi, a wealthy Hebrew couple who had fled Bethlehem during a bitter famine. Elimelech’s family had settled in…

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Jewish Treats

Hang Your Hammock

Today is National Hammock Day. Hammocking appears to be the ultimate celebration of the lazy days of summer. As we prepare for the onset of Shabbat later this afternoon, Jewish Treats…

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Jewish Treats

Tu b’Av and the Offering of Wood

Tu b’Av, the fifteenth of Av, which is today, was celebrated in ancient times by unmarried maidens who went out on this day to dance in the vineyards hoping to be chosen by an unmarried…

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Jewish Treats

Put it Together

Enhance your celebration of the joyous holiday of Sukkot by building your own sukkah. One of the beautiful explanations about why we sit in a sukkah is that it represents an inherent…

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Jewish Treats

National Hermit Day

Judaism is not known for encouraging asceticism (abstinence from mortal pleasure). While the Torah commands the Jewish people to “afflict” themselves on Yom Kippur by fasting and…

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Jewish Treats

Sigd, The Ethiopian Holiday

While most of the Jews of Ethiopia–the Beta Israel, as the Ethiopian community is properly called–have made aliyah and rejoined the global Jewish community, they have their own unique…

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