Religion

The Power of Sacred Words

by Rabbi Steven Schwartz | Nov 23, 2018 | Community, Religion, Spirituality

One good deed leads to another good deed, while one sin leads to another sin. (Mishnah Avot, 4:2) The above rabbinic maxim has often been on my mind of late. It captures the idea that one good thing commonly leads to another good thing, while the opposite is also true...

This College Student Created a Way for Nonbinary People to Speak Hebrew

by Ben Sales, JTA | Nov 19, 2018 | Community, Community Resources, LGBT, Religion

(JTA) — Some college students who think about becoming rabbis aren’t sure whether they will want to work in a synagogue or school. Others get hung up on which seminary to attend or denomination to join. Lior Gross had a different dilemma: How to speak Hebrew in...

Beth Tfiloh and Ashburton Church Celebrate their Common Bond at Day of Unity

by Carol Sorgen | Nov 15, 2018 | Children, Community, Community Resources, Education, Elderly, Family, Parenting, Religion, Spirituality

“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity.” –Psalm 133:1 Not long ago, Dr. Terris A. King, senior pastor of Ashburton’s Liberty Grace Church of God, reached out to Beth Tfiloh Congregation’s Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg. The...

How a Rabbi Saved 4 Torah Scrolls from Being Destroyed in the California Wildfires

by Josefin Dolsten, JTA | Nov 13, 2018 | Community, Community Resources, Religion, Spirituality

(JTA) — The death toll and damage continue to rise in California in the wildfires ravaging the state. More than 6,400 homes have been damaged and at least 31 people have been killed, according to CNN. Like other Californians, Jewish residents are evacuating their...

A Girl’s Doll is a Poignant Reminder of the Horrors of Kristallnacht

by Hillel Kuttler, JTA | Nov 9, 2018 | Children, Community, Community Resources, Elderly, Religion

JERUSALEM (JTA) – For decades as an adult, Lore Mayerfeld kept a doll on a chair in an off-limits bedroom or high on a shelf. Her children – and later her grandchildren and great-grandchildren – knew not to play with the toy for fear of breaking it. Dressed in...

Russia’s Westernmost Synagogue Rebuilt 80 years After Kristallnacht Destruction

by Cnaan Liphshiz | Nov 9, 2018 | Community, Community Resources, Religion

KALININGRAD, Russia (JTA) — Walking to school and back, Michael Wieck twice a day would pass by one of Europe’s largest and most spectacular Jewish places of worship: Koenigsberg’s New Synagogue. The mammoth shul was built in 1896 in the Aesopian style in the...

‘Where I’m Supposed to Be’

by Aliza Friedlander | Oct 31, 2018 | Community, Religion

Chizuk Amuno’s new senior rabbi cherishes the sanctity of community and the tenets of Conservative Judaism. As a teenager, Rabbi Joshua Z. Gruenberg admits he didn’t dream of being a pulpit rabbi. Basketball, rather than the bimah, was usually on his mind. “I thought...

In Europe, Synagogues are Protected Like Fortresses. It Took Decades to Get There.

by Cnaan Liphshiz | Oct 29, 2018 | Community, Community Resources, Religion

BRUSSELS (JTA) — Will security at American Jewish institutions now mirror that of Europe, with its police protection, armed guards, panic rooms and sterile zones at synagogues? It’s a possibility that is being debated more seriously than ever before following the Tree...

Hundreds Participate in the Great Challah Bake in Howard Co.

by JMORE Staff | Oct 29, 2018 | Community, Community Resources, Education, Family, Gallery ONLY, Religion, Spirituality

On Oct. 25, the Jewish Federation of Howard County joined hundreds of other Jewish communities around the world for the “Great Challah Bake.” A program of the federation’s FEDWomen Division, the Challah Bake was held at Laurel Park and drew more than 250...

Pittsburgh Tries to See the Future Through the Darkness

by Ron Kampeas, JTA | Oct 29, 2018 | Community, Community Resources, Milestones, Religion

PITTSBURGH (JTA) — The day after the killings, a man who brings Jewish boys into the covenant and escorts the Jewish dead to their final resting place finally got to fulfill the mitzvah of shmira, keeping watch over the bodies. The day after the killings, women...