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Ethiopian Jews paying inside a sukkah. (via Facebook)

Sharon Shalom

Bete Israel holiday wisdom: A sukkah creates community

The Ethiopian Jews’ spiritual tradition focuses not on the sukkah’s details or those of the 4 species, but on a sense of belonging and being guests in God’s world

A wedding present in the making since before he was born (illustrative: BongkarnThanyakij / iStock)

Romi Sussman

I have kept this secret for 25 years

As my oldest son prepared to marry, the time finally came to share something I’d been making for him since he was a baby

Tamar Pross

When my Israeli son asked me ‘What is Jewish?’

It took moving our family to Australia for me to understand what my 9-year-old had always taken for granted

A recording and transcription of the Agranat Commission. (Lkahan / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sagit Alkobi Fishman

The Yom Kippur lesson Israel still needs after October 7

No inquiry can guarantee that an Israeli ‘conception’ won’t collapse down the road, but it can turn a catastrophe into an event we learn from, and that’s worth it

Yesh Atid MK Debbie Biton taken out by Knesset guards during a a Constitution, Law and Justice Committee meeting, at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on June 25, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90/ File)

Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll

Making Yom Kippur count

Fasting is easy. What’s hard is taking responsibility not for our close circles, but for those with whom we vehemently disagree

Construction on Emek Refaim - (c) Ilana Brown

Ilana Brown

A lamentation for Jerusalem: Remembering Emek Refaim

The city that Yehuda Amichai and I love is disappearing amid bland high-rises that crush the Eternal City’s spirit with mediocrity and greed (PHOTO ESSAY)

The Gothics. (Wikipedia)

Henry Greenspan

The Trail Book of Life

Hiking in the Adirondacks on Yom Kippur yielded its own kind of spiritual resplendence, though I couldn’t stop myself poking fun at fellow transgressors there

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Sep 24, 2026, 8:45 AM

IsraelaPhobic Betty Boop McCollum at it Again…

I see that Betty McCollum (D-MN) is still suffering from IsraelaPhobia. She caught this Bug years ago when she began obsessively instigating anti-Israel legislation. Rafael Medoff, founding director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies posts, “In every...

Sep 24, 2026, 8:44 AM

The Missing Variable in Israel’s Qatari Hamas Funding Debate

The current uproar over whether Benjamin Netanyahu ignored intelligence warnings that Qatari money was reaching Hamas's military wing is being argued almost entirely as a question of diversion: did specific dollars, transferred for humanitarian purposes, get siphoned into Muhammad...

Allen S. Maller

Sep 24, 2026, 8:37 AM

‘Princess8888888’ is thinking of converting to Judaism But

princess8888888 writes that she is thinking of converting to Judaism. “I have been looking into Jewish conversion for a while and everyone keeps saying Jews will never consider you a Jew - I have never found this to be...

Ibrahim Mukherjee

Sep 24, 2026, 6:47 AM

Abraham’s Question.

The Fingertip Hold up your hand. Look at the end of your index finger. There is nothing visually spectacular about it. A little skin, a nail, flesh and bone. Yet when the Qur’an challenges the human being who doubts resurrection, it chooses...

Sep 24, 2026, 6:46 AM

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the UN, I stand behind him

Screenshot

A few years ago, I had the honor of meeting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in NYC. As a leader of the Jewish community on the West Side of Manhattan, it was an honor to meet him. I have always...

Sep 24, 2026, 6:32 AM

Proper Roof Material

There is a technical law connected with the construction of a Succah, that needs clarification. This a specific law related to the roof of the Succah, known as “Schach.” The rule is that we may not use anything that is...

Sep 24, 2026, 6:32 AM

Temple Israel: Back on Its Feet—and Unbent

If I had to sum up the spirit of Temple Israel as the Jewish year 5787 begins, I would choose one word: resilience. Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, is enormous: some 3,500 families and more than 12,000 members make...

Sep 24, 2026, 6:30 AM

Spiritual Happiness

Years ago I sent an ebook I co-authored, "Four Dimensional Flourishing," to Dr. Martin Seligman, a founder of Positive Psychology. I was extremely happy when he replied, "Check out PERMA and the relation of M to spiritual flourishing." Dr. Seligman...

Sep 24, 2026, 5:42 AM

The AI Dialectic – Can Ancient Faith Give Artificial Intelligence a Conscience?

A Sermon for the Tech Age This past Yom Kippur, Rabbi Naftali Citron of the Carlebach synagogue in New York delivered a sermon that stayed with me long after the final blast of the Shofar. His message was urgent: our...

Sep 24, 2026, 5:41 AM

The Sephardic Voice the Jewish World Needs

This past August, around 150 rabbis and community leaders from a dozen countries gathered at the UJA-Federation in New York for the second Sephardic Rabbinic Conference. There were representatives from over 13 U.S. States and delegations from Canada, Mexico,...

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