Jewish Holidays and Culture

A Mohel in Jerusalem

November 4, 2009

Last week our mohel, Rabbi Chanan Feld, passed away in Berkeley. I say “our” mohel – he presided over our now 18-year-old son Amir’s brit mila (ritual circumcision) in 1991 – but he really belonged to the entire northern half of California where he touched the lives of literally thousands of new parents and their […]

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Sexuality and Orthodoxy

October 13, 2009

Sex sells. And in Jerusalem, with its large religious population, a session on if Orthodoxy can come to terms with sexual activity – both in and out of marriage – drew an overflow crowd at the recent Gateways Festival of Jewish Learning and Culture. The festival is a remarkable event: two days of pluralistic learning […]

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Wacky Rabbi

October 7, 2009

What non-leather footwear did you don this Yom Kippur? Crocs, you say? Oy va voy! You just violated the latest fashion halacha from none other than esteemed Lithuanian leader Rabbi Yosef Sholom Eliayshiv who banned the popular rubber shoes for being “too comfortable. “ The ruling, according to an article in Ynet, came in response […]

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Business Advice for Social Entrepreneurs

July 29, 2009

As the 16 “social entrepreneurs” took to the stage last Thursday to present their 15-second “elevator pitch,” I was filled with a profound sense of Jewish pride. Here were some of Israel’s best and brightest, hand selected by the Presentense organization which aims to arm young people who want to do good with solid business […]

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Passion for Hebrew

July 21, 2009

I have long had a love hate relationship with Hebrew. I first arrived in Israel in 1984 as a backpacker with no plans and lots of time to indulge in the fine art of bumming around. I did a few Jewish learning programs, wrote scripts for videos, worked in a deli and, somewhere in the […]

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Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish

June 19, 2009

Two weeks ago, prior to the “Enhanced Kaddish” ceremony we held for my father, Jody and I attended a very different musical memorial. Together with several thousand Israelis, we trekked to Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, for a special outdoor performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3, also known as Kaddish. […]

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Kaddish & Kiddush

June 4, 2009

Since my father died two months ago, I’ve thought a lot about what is the nature of community and, in particular, what is my place in it. It’s not a simple question. For many years I’ve been what I jokingly call “tefilacally-challenged” (tefilah being the Hebrew for “prayer”). Prayer is not something that’s easy for […]

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TNL Classic: More Cheese Please

May 28, 2009

The Jewish holiday of Shavuot begins tonight and I’ve dug up another TNL classic. This one first appeared just before Shavuot in 2005. The kids are, naturally, a bit younger in this story but the learning is just as relevant today. Enjoy…and chag sameach! ————————— “What are we going to do today?” six-year-old Aviv demanded […]

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The Future of Reading (and its Impact on Jewish Law)

May 7, 2009

I have seen the future of reading and it is not print books or newspapers. On Wednesday, Amazon unveiled the Kindle DX, a larger version of its popular Kindle eBook reader. The DX’s 9.7-inch screen is two and a half times the size of the original Kindle, making it perfect for reading newspapers, magazines, textbooks, […]

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The Power of Shiva

April 17, 2009

I have paid many shiva calls but I never truly realized how important they are until I sat on the other side of the chair. My father, Walter Blum, died on a Sunday. He was buried on Wednesday. I sat shiva for one day in California at my parents’ home. Then I returned to Israel […]

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