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Eric M. Leiderman

Jul 6, 2026, 3:02 AM

America, the Other Jewish Homeland

Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, America's oldest synagogue. Photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). President George Washington's 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport. Image courtesy of the U.S. National Archives (public domain).

As Americans celebrate Independence Day this weekend, millions of people will gather for barbecues, parades, fireworks, and backyard parties. In Chicago, where I live, many of those celebrations will include a local tradition: the Chicago-style hot dog. It is...

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 1, 2026, 4:54 AM

The Quiet Search for Love Across the Muslim World

Illustrative. AI image created by the author.

My mother spent her life believing that love could be learned. Not performed. Not endured. Not organized around roles assigned at birth and enforced by silence. Learned — practiced, repaired, deepened — by any human being willing to do the work. In...

Sharona Margolin Halickman

Jun 30, 2026, 1:08 PM

Pinchas’ Surprising Lineage

The genealogy of the tribes of Reuven, Shimon and Levi is found in Shmot, Chapter 6. In verse 25, we come across Pinchas’ lineage: Elazar, Aharon’s son, married one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Pinchas. It seems...

Jun 30, 2026, 10:18 AM

If Your Child Can’t Tell You the Hardest Truth, Nothing Else Matters

Illustrative. AI image created by the author.

Making our homes places where our children’s hardest truths are welcomed, not feared. A few months ago, a friend told me about her daughter. Sixteen years old, good student, close with her parents — or so they thought. It was...

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...

Grant Arthur Gochin

Jun 25, 2026, 10:13 PM

An Aliyah to the Torah and Tears of Joy

Courtesy of Author

From Papilė to Zurich, l’dor v’dor Nearly fifty years ago, on November 13, 1976, my grandfather Samuel Gochin was called to the Torah at my bar mitzvah in South Africa. He was 75 years old. Next weekend, in Zurich, I will...

Carol Silver Elliott

Jun 24, 2026, 10:54 PM

Getting Unstuck

Last week I had the opportunity to be a part of a presentation at an elder care conference. The topic was health and nutrition, and the subject matter was wide ranging. It included the recognition that, especially in an...

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...

Jun 22, 2026, 7:52 PM

What It Means to Be a Jewish Father

My children call me “Aba.” I have been given several other names that carried weight, including soldier, instructor, and business owner. Each came with duties I understood and accepted. Fatherhood arrived without instructions and asked more of me than...

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