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Death and Mourning

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Isaac Steven Herschkopf

Aug 6, 2026, 5:17 AM

Happy Endings: The Miracle of Terminal Lucidity

"Lowly faithful, banish fear, Right onward drive unharmed; The port, well worth the cruise, is near, And every wave is charmed." Terminus, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1867) Both my parents died from dementia. In truth, they perished as my parent long before...

Andy Blumenthal

Aug 2, 2026, 4:57 AM

Don’t Wait Until Death to Learn How to Live

Mitch Albom’s The Five People You Meet in Heaven is a novel about Eddie, an aging amusement-park maintenance worker who dies trying to save a child and then meets five people in heaven. Each encounter helps him understand a...

Molly Livingstone

Jul 30, 2026, 10:04 PM

The shadow of the Hebrew U. bombing, 24 years later

The day Marla Bennett was murdered, I was waiting for her to return to our California summer camp and tell me all about her time in Israel. I am here because of her

Michael S. Diamond

Jul 27, 2026, 4:18 AM

The Archive of Forgetting and Undoing

I have registered my maps in The Archive of Forgetting and Undoing. The walls to the Holy City have been breached in this month of the Babylonian god who at Summer’s zenith dies, the faithful son, and returns with the rains of Winter and Spring dew, ransom for his goddess sister, Lady of the Date Clusters. Perhaps...

Jul 26, 2026, 5:19 PM

So that’s that

I thought the 11 months of saying Kaddish were teaching me how to mourn; really, they taught me how to live without my mother

Jul 24, 2026, 12:31 PM

The Burned Beams Beneath Jerusalem

The Givati Excavation
Photo: Gary Todd, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Yesterday, I read a fascinating article about a new archaeological discovery in Jerusalem. Archaeologists excavating in the City of David uncovered enormous wooden roof beams, blackened by fire and still lying where they had crashed down when the Babylonians burned...

Nina L. Kampler

Jul 23, 2026, 9:25 AM

I thought I knew my father’s story; then some untranslated letters came to light

Nina Kampler and Mark Kampler deliver Kampler Holocaust-era letters to Yad Vashem, June 17, 2026. (courtesy)

He was the only Jew to survive the entire war at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, but he shouldn't have been there at all

Jul 20, 2026, 11:09 PM

Infinite Responsibility: In Memory of a Camper

Mural commemorating Michael Levin. (courtesy)

Twenty-six years later, I can still picture myself counting my campers on the bus. In the summer of 2000, I led the oldest camper division at Camp Ramah in the Poconos. Now 42 years old, many of my campers have...

Jul 20, 2026, 10:39 PM

Finding Uncle Isidor

(Operation Benjamin via Facebook)

Being able to place a Star of David on the grave of a fallen relative and reconnect him with the Jewish people was a divine gift – delivered by human kindness

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...

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