In the summer of 1998 I was a madrich (Hebrew for counselor) on the Michigan Teen Mission to Israel. This was the second teen Israel trip coordinated by the Metropolitan Detroit’s Jewish Federation. I helped lead a bus of Conservative Jewish teens from Congregation Shaarey Zedek and we traveled through Israel with a bus of teens…
It’s not unusual for a company to change names following a high-profile scandal. Philip Morris famously changed to Altria, Blackwater became Xe, ValuJet became AirTran, and Andersen Consulting became Accenture following its involvement in the Enron scandal. Cingular became AT&T, and the WWF became the WWE. I wouldn’t be surprised if BP changed its name after the…
Amar’e Stoudemire’s official Twitter account name is @Amareisreal but it mind as well be AmareIsrael. From his Twitter feed we learn that the basketball star is now in Jerusalem, Israel searching for his Jewish heritage. The 2003 Rookie of the Year has apparently learned that he has Jewish roots (born in Lake Wales, Florida his…
I have it on good authority that Chelsea’s wedding this Saturday night at Astor Mansion in Rhinebeck, NY will be co-officiated by both a rabbi and a Methodist minister. But who’s officiating at their wedding should really matter a lot less than how they will be as a married couple. At the first meeting with…
In addition to providing kosher supervision for Camp Mass, a Jewish residential summer camp in Michigan run by Tamarack Camps, I also run several informal educational programs. One of my favorite programs is planting trees with the campers and their counselors. I wrote the following article about the importance of trees for the camp’s online…
Admittedly, the title of this blog post might seem odd and perhaps you’re wondering how I’m going to tie all of these things together. However, this is what has been circling in my head over the past couple days. Allow me to explain. The other night during a rain delay in the ninth inning of…
Cross-posted at Jewish Techs Every synagogue minyan (daily prayer group) has the one person who always seems to be there. In some congregations, this might be the gabbai (a ritual director of sorts). In other shuls it might be the rabbi. And in others it might be a lay person who is very dedicated and wants to ensure…
The Holocaust Memorial Center in Detroit, Michigan is the nation’s first Holocaust memorial. It was originally located in a building connected to the Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield. It was this Holocaust museum that I toured with my grandfather when I was twelve-years-old and listened to him explain that many of his family members…
I work as the rabbi at a Jewish summer camp. We have eighty campers from Israel join us each summer. Many of these young campers, like most Israelis, are not familiar with liberal, alternative forms of religious expression in Judaism. In Israel, Judaism is black and white. You either do it or you don’t –…
I’m hesitant to write about Chelsea Clinton’s upcoming wedding to Marc Mezvinsky, who was raised in Conservative Judaism, because I want to respect the private lives of the bride and groom. However, when the bride is the daughter of the 40th President of the United States, I suppose she is classified as a celebrity and…