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Aug 9, 2026, 1:53 AM

Behind the scenes- both hiccups and joy

Seven months ago my son Yeshaya had a Bar Mitzvah. Everything went right, besides everything that didn't. It was an incredible Bar Mitzvah weekend filled with family, love and friendship. But let me tell you, it had its hiccups....

Sigalle M. Shpayher

Aug 7, 2026, 8:24 PM

The Blueprint I Had to Burn

“Chanoch l'na'ar al pi darko - Educate a child according to their way." Every Jewish parent knows this verse. We quote it in speeches. We nod knowingly when someone else says it. We find schools with differentiated instruction, we get...

Aug 7, 2026, 7:19 PM

Inches to Metric: Creating Sacred Spaces – Mercaz Kopin

Mercaz Kopin circa 2000. Photo Beth Kopin

Follow your inner voice. When I was a little girl, we lived on the South Side of Chicago in a modest (white box) home. My parents hired a designer. The transformation was magical. I was dazzled/hooked! By the age of...

Julian Ungar-Sargon

Aug 7, 2026, 7:05 PM

The City My Father Lost — Part II

“A synagogue is not a building. It is a room in which a community agrees, weekly, to be addressed.” On the third morning I walked from Marchettigasse to Stumpergasse, which takes about eight minutes, and which my grandfather did on...

Aug 7, 2026, 12:41 AM

Flowers Ungiven Have No Breath

I started buying flowers on Friday mornings, a bouquet, flowers in my hand. I buy them, like I have someone to buy them for, someone in my heart, someone in my soul. I don't. I buy the flowers. Around town I walk,...

Sarit Silverman

Aug 4, 2026, 7:49 PM

The hidden costs of all that reserve duty

An IDF reserve soldier takes part in a military drill in northern Israel along the border with Lebanon and Syria. (Michael Giladi/ Flash90)

New research shows that reservists pay the greatest price for their additional service not in today's lost income, but in tomorrow's lost opportunities

Aug 4, 2026, 5:56 PM

We Know Good and Evil. Why Can’t We Choose Life?

When being right becomes the goal, relationships become collateral damage. Recently, I wanted to raise the subject of Israel’s military draft with my Haredi sister. I served in the Israeli army. She belongs to a community that understands Torah study and...

Aug 4, 2026, 12:12 AM

See You Again Real Soon

Now, from my airplane window, I watch the last glimpse of the Tel Aviv coastline fade into a blanket of clouds, white and soft like the foam on my morning cappuccino. My heart tightens, yet it is full of...

Janet Bond Brill

Aug 3, 2026, 6:34 PM

The Nazis took the piano. They couldn’t take the songs

How a family on Mila Street sang through the destruction of everything they owned, and why the music outlived the men who came for them

Aug 3, 2026, 6:31 PM

A Letter to an Angry Nephew

Dear Nephew: I hope all is well with you and yours. Admittedly, I am tardy in responding to your social media condemnation of Israel. For this I apologize. I just didn't know how to respond. It's difficult for me to...

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