In February I toured the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam for the first time. It was a chilling experience. Since 7th grade, I’ve read several versions of Anne Frank’s diary. I’ve seen several versions of movies about Anne Frank. And I toured the Anne Frank exhibit at the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. I…
Today was Yom HaShoah, the annual commemoration of the Holocaust in which we remember the millions who perished at the hands of the Nazis. As I read the names of children from Hungary who were murdered in the Shoah, I thought about my recent trip to Berlin. I thought about how different Berlin would be…
This has been a whirlwind week for me in Berlin, where I’ve spent long days touring with other young Conservative rabbis. We have learned first hand about how Germans have confronted their past and are looking to their future. We have seen the German Jewish community rebuilding itself with a sense of pride and renewal….
Last week, I was asked by the Detroit Free Press to submit three paragraphs reflecting on where I was on September 11, 2001 and how my life changed as a result of that day. The irony for my wife and for me is that we made the conscious decision to go ahead with our plans…
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…
On an early morning this past June, I stood in a synagogue parking lot taking temperatures of the Jewish children before they boarded the buses to take them off to summer camp. Along with every other staff member in the parking lot, I was wearing a brown shirt — the official staff shirt of the…
JTA writer Ami Eden began his blog post about the showing of Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” at the Jewish Theological Seminary as follows: There are many wonderful things to say about the Jewish Theological Seminary, but let’s face it — it’s not exactly where all the hipsters meet. Honestly, how many times do you find…
Ari Teman is having a great year. First, the Jewish comedian and founder of Jcorps wins the highly competitive Jewish Community Hero award. Next, he gets invited to the White House Hanukkah party. I’m pretty sure it was a legit invite and that he didn’t just crash an official White House party like Tareq and…
My first exposure to Catholicism was as a teenager. I was the assistant to a photographer who photographed several Catholic weddings. I found it fascinating to be in these beautiful churches and watch the religious rites of the Catholic tradition. I joked that, at the time, I had been to more Catholic weddings than Jewish…
I’ve been thinking a lot about sacred space recently. Of course, I give much thought to the concept of what makes a place holy (or sacred) whenever I am in Israel. At each turn one encounters a sacred location from Jewish history. However, what turns a place that is generally considered to be a secular…