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Death and Mourning

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Oct 30, 2026, 5:42 PM

The Coconut Cake I Can Still Taste

For two days, since my beautiful and dearly loved Bubby Denburg passed away, I have been living in my memories, searching for the words to describe her. My mind takes me back to my childhood, as a young boy on...

Oct 30, 2026, 2:04 AM

When the Work Comes Home: Planning for Death Belongs in Every Jewish Institution

While working at a JCC some years ago, I noticed a pattern: families ended up in crisis because they hadn’t planned for the realities of mortality. They needed help to weather the crises… the death of the primary wage...

Vincent James Hooper

Oct 29, 2026, 11:19 AM

The Hotel of the Good Name

On the Parade in Plymouth's old Barbican, close to the steps from which tradition says the Mayflower sailed in 1620, there is a wall that is slowly forgetting what it was told. In 1971 a young painter began covering...

Oct 29, 2026, 10:34 AM

One Woman’s Perspective

The blog below contains words about suicide. Although not graphic, some may find it activating. Please move past the following if there is any doubt. * * * It seems all my life I’ve spent waiting, watching and waiting, never doing....

Oct 21, 2026, 8:49 PM

Bringing Home Our Own Is a Defining Jewish Quality

AI generated Illustration of a funeral in Israel

As a young man in Brooklyn, I volunteered with the chevra kadisha, the burial society that prepares the dead according to Jewish law. My father coordinated it for the Va'ad HaRabbonim of Flatbush, so I grew up around the...

Oct 15, 2026, 7:40 PM

Confronting A Destroyed World

The door of the ark opens to a new world. Noach emerges with his family. God makes a covenant with Man, promising that he will never wreak such destruction upon the world again. The rainbow in the sky symbolises...

Oct 13, 2026, 10:31 AM

A list of the people you have lost

Every Jewish calendar I have used has a page most people never look at until they need it. It holds a short list: a name, a Hebrew date, sometimes a relationship. Father. Grandmother. A brother. It tells you when...

Boruch Itzkowitz

Oct 13, 2026, 12:02 AM

When Halakha Meets Headlines: The Toronto Burial Controversy and What It Reveals about Jewish Authority

The Toronto Beth Din's decision to restrict burial rites for Jews who die by medical assistance has ignited predictable outrage. Critics frame it as cruel, outdated, punitive. Supporters defend it as principled adherence to Jewish law. Both sides miss...

Ruthie Hollander

Oct 8, 2026, 11:15 PM

When God grieves: Ayeka, Eikha

I recently tried to explain the concept of a rhetorical question to my 4-year-old. “I know the answer to the question,” I told her. “I’m asking because I want you to think about it.” In Parashat Bereishit, mankind is asked...

Oct 8, 2026, 6:18 AM

Israel: Learning to Carry the Empty Chair

Photo Credits: Sabine Sterk ( AI)

There are many ways to describe loss, but I think one of the most painful is an empty chair. It is the chair at the family table that nobody sits in anymore. It is the place beside you in...

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