Sura Jeselsohn, at The Blogs

Sep 12, 2022, 11:57 PM

Shofar and Rosh Hashana Rosh Hashanah will soon be upon us. Although there is a special lengthy prayer service for Rosh Hashana, the central observance of the holiday is the blowing of the shofar. Because of the significance of the...

Aug 18, 2021, 7:35 AM

Methuselah is alive and well and living in Israel

The Palm Tree Named Methuselah Grown From an Ancient Date Seed - Sura Jeselsohn

Is This a Modern Day Miracle!? If you want to see Methuselah, he is living on a kibbutz in southern Israel! Isn’t Methuselah the longest lived person named in the Bible at 969 years? And wouldn’t he have died a...

Mar 1, 2021, 5:06 PM

As Hard As It May Seem, A Hat Made Out of Mushrooms

Do We Care About the Philistine? Since we travel several times a year to Israel (before Covid), we are always on the lookout for something new to see. Several years ago we ended up at the Corinne Mamane Museum of...

Feb 1, 2021, 4:23 PM

Open Sesame – The Magic is Still With Us

Still Reading Some Childhood Favorites One of my favorite books has been 1001 Nights – also known as the Arabian Nights – which I reread every now and again even as an adult. The cliff-hanging tales full of magic and fantasy, told by...

Jan 17, 2021, 8:58 PM

EcoFlora Can Save Us All

We Need Something Interesting To Do This Winter Having given much thought to the problem of how to deal with wintertime isolation, I have arrived at one particular solution that, I believe, can make this time both interesting and productive...

Jan 15, 2021, 3:11 AM

Why facts don’t matter anymore

“The downside of higher education is that it gives you the confidence to maintain baseless fantasies in defiance of common sense." Derek Bickerton, Author of Bastard Tongues: A Trail-Blazing Linguist Finds Clues to Our Common Humanity in the World's Lowliest...

May 21, 2019, 1:20 PM

Agricultural Innovations of Gush Katif

Sometimes, what you expect is not what you get! Visiting Israel several weeks ago, I had made arrangements to see how the residents of Netzer Hazani, a reconstituted community that had been expelled from Gush Katif, were creating a tourist...

Sep 24, 2018, 12:06 AM

Meaningful Yom Kippur in Washington Heights

Last Tuesday night I caught a glimpse of a moment a hundred years ago. My husband, Aryeh, is of Yekkish (German-Jewish) descent and I am not. Despite a certain acknowledgment of Hungarian origins, I see myself simply as a Modern...

Aug 27, 2018, 8:24 PM

Deafness Outside the Deaf Community

When your friends start hitting their sixties, you suddenly notice that they are asking you to repeat yourself more often. Just as so many other bodily functions change with time, so too hearing changes as well. While poor sight can...

Apr 30, 2018, 7:04 AM

Shiva — A Celebration of a Meaningful Life

The last day of Pesach 2018, I left the synagogue during the Yizkor memorial prayer in keeping with the custom (minhag) of not being present during your parents’ lifetime. That Thursday, I was attending the funeral of my father,...

About Me

Sura Jeselsohn has a background in science and is an avid gardener and quilter. Her weekly column, Green Scene, is published in the Riverdale Press. She has published a book, "A Habit of Seeing: Journeys in Natural Science" , available in paperback and Kindle at Amazon.com.

Contact Me