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Jul 2, 2024, 6:08 PM

Why We Need to Sing… Now!

North American Jewish Choral Festival 2024
Join our magical musical community - North American Jewish Choral Festival! Sing and learn with great conductors and teachers, enjoy beautiful surroundings, and have the time of your life! #bestweekofthesummerRegister and learn more using the link in the comments below.
Posted by Zamir Choral Foundation on Monday, May 6, 2024

Why Jews Need to Sing Now More than Ever Before By Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik To Sing is to Belong To Sing is to Celebrate To Sing is to Express a Wide Range of Emotions To Sing is to Reflect on the Future Music,...

Feb 11, 2024, 12:03 PM

Why Visiting Israel Matters… Right Now

My wife Robin and I returned this past week from a 5-day volunteer mission to Israel, organized and implemented by the JNF. We were part of a larger delegation of some 250 people from our region, including 12 from our synagogue, Bnai Shalom, in West...

Dec 29, 2023, 5:17 AM

For Whom I Would Lay Down My Life…

When my wife and I left Forest Hills this past summer after forty-two years, thirty-seven of them in the same home, the challenge of making a new living space truly our own was daunting. The good news was that we had plenty of room within...

Nov 8, 2023, 1:50 AM

Say Their Names…

In the awful days and weeks following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, when protests against violent police erupted in cities across America, many American Jews, myself included, joined in public demonstrations of protest. Given my personal history as a liberal “child of the...

Oct 20, 2023, 6:00 AM

Alternative Facts…Then and Now

The phrase “alternative facts” entered the American lexicon in the earliest days of the Trump presidency. Just days after Trump’s inauguration in 2017, then Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed at a news conference that the number of people attending that ceremony was the largest in...

Apr 18, 2023, 6:25 PM

Right Here in River City…

For forty -two years, the length of my rabbinate here at The Forest Hills Jewish Center, I have worked hard to make the observance of Yom HaShoah a sacred day on our synagogue calendar. I am sharing my remarks from this year’s observance because what...

Oct 18, 2020, 11:02 PM

Drawing Lines, and Learning Lessons

From the official Michigan.gov website

At a weekend rally in Michigan, President Trump sarcastically intoned the name of Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the woman who had the audacity to actively try and stem the spread of Covid-19 in her state. He exhorted the assembled, unmasked attendees to press her to”open up...

May 5, 2020, 11:15 PM

Observations From Along Pandemic’s Way

As a lifelong student of Talmud- at least since fifth grade- I was taught from a very early age to question what the broader implications of a text or teaching might be. One of my earliest memories of Yeshiva instruction was my rebbe saying to...

Mar 20, 2020, 9:25 PM

People Have Endured Far Worse… And We Should Know

This past summer, my wife Robin and I spent a few short days in Amsterdam en route from Italy to Israel. (I know, wrong way, but that’s a long story). It was impossible to take advantage of everything that that great city has to offer,...

Jan 28, 2020, 7:13 AM

Reflecting on what was lost…

Along with virtually all sports fans here in America and around the world, I spent a good part of Sunday afternoon trying to process the news of Kobe Bryant’s sudden and violent death, along with his teenaged daughter and seven other souls. If, at some...

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About Me

Rabbi Gerald C. Skolnik is the Rabbi Emeritus of the Forest Hills Jewish Center in Queens.

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