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Death and Mourning

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Jul 10, 2026, 8:36 AM

A Timely and Urgent Resource for Every Jewish Community

“The Case against Cremation and for Traditional Burial” A profound defense of Jewish tradition and the eternal sanctity of the human form In recent years, a troubling and deeply concerning trend has emerged: too many Jews are opting for cremation without...

Jul 7, 2026, 2:35 PM

The Builders of Our Survival: A Lesson for the Three Weeks

This week, the Jewish world enters the Three Weeks—the solemn period of mourning marking the breach of Jerusalem’s walls and the eventual destruction of the Temple. It is a time when we look back at historical ruins and the...

Brendon Stewart Freedman

Jul 7, 2026, 12:33 AM

Helping People Live Until They Die

Many people believe that palliative care begins when medicine has run out of ideas, and they are right. But they are also wrong, and wrong very significantly, because of the unspoken assumption that goes with this belief. That assumption...

Andy Blumenthal

Jul 4, 2026, 10:26 PM

The Abyss Taught Me That Connection Is Everything

This week I had one of the most frightening dreams of my life. In it, I was severed from everyone I had ever known or loved—not merely alone, but cast into an emptiness beyond light, beyond warmth, beyond relationship...

Jul 2, 2026, 10:48 PM

Am Yisrael: 1,000 days of memory, mourning, and resilience

1,000 days ago, on October 6, 2023, my family and friends told stories in a sukkah, enjoying each other’s company. We did not expect time to tragically stop, for normalcy to become a foreign word, for our faraway family...

Jun 30, 2026, 2:56 PM

The Geometry of Modi’s Absence at Khamenei’s Funeral

Ali Khamenei (1978) in a protest during Iranian Revolution (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

State funerals, like all theatre, are exercises in geometry. The question is never simply who attends, but where they stand, how close to the centre, and how high up the hierarchy. India’s decision to send Minister of State for...

Sherwin Pomerantz

Jun 29, 2026, 7:01 PM

Lessons from my Father on His 50th Yahrzeit

On Tuesday evening and Wednesday of this week I will observe the 50th anniversary of the passing of my father, Sidney Pomerantz, of blessed memory. Memorial days often are times not only of remembrances about the loss per se, but...

Jun 28, 2026, 5:56 PM

Can you imagine helping Survivors of violent crimes and end up being stalked by one or more of the “alleged” sexual predators of those you helped? Can you imagine having a successful career and then suddenly needing to live...

Chava (Patricia) Kadoche

Jun 24, 2026, 10:13 PM

We Carry Them With Us

Last night, at the wedding of my cousin's son, I witnessed one of the most moving moments I have experienced since making aliyah. As the chattan stood beneath the chuppah, the names of soldiers from his unit who had fallen...

Mordechai Soskil

Jun 24, 2026, 8:49 PM

Kaddish Brothers

This Friday will conclude 11 months since my father’s death, and thus the end of my period of time to say the Mourner’s Kaddish. When a Jew is sitting Shiva, they stay at home and the minyan comes to...

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