Jewish Voices, Jewish Lives

It’s what we do every day. Whether it’s the food we favor…a bagel with shmear… or the drive to repair the world…tikkun olam, we Jews are there, especially in Rockland County. We plan to bring Doing Jewish to you every Friday. Sometimes it’ll be fun, sometimes it’ll be serious.

Dire Straits

Our tradition advises that these days between the 17th of Tammuz and the ninth of Av - especially the first nine days of Av - are described as ‘Bein Hametzarim’ or ‘In or between dire straits’ considering our historical calamities (the breaching of Jerusalem’s walls and destruction…

300

As most of you will have noted, yesterday marked 300 days of captivity for the hostages taken on 10/7. 300 days of darkness, privation, abuse and worse. So much has transpired in those 300 days, and yet we find ourselves still praying, still hoping, still advocating and still demanding the r…

Strange Days

One of John Lennon’s last songs, left unfinished and released after his death, was ‘Nobody Told Me’. One line in the first stanza has stayed with me since I was a teenager.

Nobody told me there’d be days like these, Strange days indeed, most peculiar mama!

We’ve all felt the trut…

Rise Up

Though I rarely share thoughts on the weekly Torah portion, I thought that this week was an interesting opportunity to draw pertinent and relevant conclusions from the fascinating narrative.

In this portion, the Moabite King Balak hires the prophet and soothsayer Bilam to curse the people …

The next generation

In several weeks, we’ll be traveling to Israel on a Unity mission, and we invite you to join us. You can find more information and register HERE.

One of the important elements of our mission will be visiting IDF soldiers recovering from serious wounds at Tel Hashomer hospital. I’d like …