I awoke in the middle of the night last night unable to sleep. It was a little before 4:00 AM. I know what time it was because I looked on my phone since the power was out from the winter storm. Shockingly, I noticed from a few email messages, tweets and Facebook postings that the…
One of the highlights of attending Shabbat services at Adat Shalom Synagogue since I was a young child has been talking with Dr. Abe Nemeth. Dr. Nemeth, who passed away yesterday at 94, was a brilliant mathematician and inventor. Dr. Nemeth was blind since birth, but he invented many technological devices to make his life…
Today is the secular anniversary of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the preeminent theologian of the 20th century (his yahrzeit on the 18th of Tevet is next week). Many of my teachers at The Jewish Theological Seminary were students of Heschel’s and were highly influenced by his thinking and writing. In Heschel’s memory I share my favorite…
Originally published on JTA.org A few months after my first child was born, I went to a bookstore to buy a few books that I thought needed to be on the bookshelf of my new baby’s nursery. Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are” was one of those books. A childhood favorite of mine, I…
Back in 1987 at Camp Tamarack, I remember a couple of friends and I decided to sing “Paul Revere” for a talent show. “Only if I can be MCA,” I recall saying to my two fellow campers. There was something about MCA that I always liked. Three Jewish white boys at a Jewish summer camp…
Whitney Houston was not Jewish, but she did have a connection to the State of Israel. The singer, who died yesterday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles, traveled to Israel in 2003 with her then husband Bobby Brown. Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown were invited to tour Israel by the Black Hebrews, who…
Dear Eden, When I heard the horrible news yesterday evening about your father’s tragic death I immediately thought of you. I then spent the entire 25 hours of Shabbat asking God how this could happen and hugging my children a few extra times than I ordinarily do. I can’t stop thinking of the first time…
I try to keep up with the current events of the worldwide Jewish community. I read all of the major Jewish newspapers (or at least their websites). Therefore, I knew when Rabbi Natan Tzvi Finkel died on November 8 in Jerusalem. And yet, I admit I had never heard of him before. Rabbi Finkel was…
For many years I’ve been writing and speaking about the impact of technology on Jewish life. In 1995 I had the idea to use email (it was still fairly new at the time) to ask random people around the world to wish my brother congratulations on his upcoming bar mitzvah. The response was overwhelming and…
Was Amy Winehouse Jewish? Yes, she was. The singer, who was found dead today in her London home, was born in Southgate, London to Janis, a pharmacist, and Mitch, a cab driver. A 2010 article in Moment Magazine titled “Surprise, They’re Jewish,” describes Winehouse as “The 27-year old British, bee-hived vocalist and tabloid headliner is…