Halloween

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Oct 25, 2024, 6:20 PM

Our obsession with symbolism, status, and rituals

We love rituals and ceremonies. It's just how we're wired as humans. The Jewish culture, of course, has a rich and long tradition of both. Some rituals and ceremonies are inspiring and uplifting, while others are used to humiliate...

Oct 27, 2023, 8:39 PM

Why I’m Cancelling Halloween

According to halacha, Jews don’t participate in Halloween. This is because the holiday---originally All Hallow’s Eve—started as a Celtic rite until the Catholic Church incorporated it into the Christian calendar, and Torah prohibits Jews from partaking in “gentile customs.”...

Oct 1, 2023, 12:15 PM

Preliminary Notes on a Miami Cannibal

Alejo Reinoso for Unsplash.

May 4, 2020 Gabriel called. He’s ready to work on the documentary. We’re so inspired now that we’re already sending each other five-minute-long Voice Notes on WhatsApp discussing ideas. We have come to the understanding that despite the gruesome details...

Nov 8, 2022, 9:08 PM

Dressing up as a Nazi mirrors the past in more ways than one

Nazi uniforms at the Lofoten War Memorial Museum, Norway (source: Wikimedia Commons)

This Halloween, a goose-stepping student dressed up as a Nazi at Jones College Prep, a high school in Chicago - The Ninth Candle's home town. It wasn't an isolated incident. In New York City, a man went into a bar...

Nov 2, 2022, 11:12 AM

Halloween in Israel explains the election

A Facebook post by a US car manufacturer with an R&D site in Israel started my day two days ago about their trick-or-treating at their offices here in Israel. On the one hand, I could argue they were following a...

Bernard Bar Natan

Oct 27, 2022, 7:48 AM

I’m far from a socialist, but… A never-ending Halloween story

It was Halloween, 1995 and I was in Boston for the first, and still to date the only time, as part of an Israeli government sponsored road trip to garner investments for incubator projects and start-ups, my very fledgling...

Oct 25, 2022, 12:28 AM

Fantastic Jewish beasts and where to find them

The Golem isn't even Judaism's scariest creature. (Golem image from the Wax Museum in Cesky Krumlov, Czech Republic, photo by Jerzy Strzelecki, file licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported)

As Halloween sneaks up behind us, why not check out these Jewish things that go bump in the night...if you dare!

Oct 29, 2021, 10:38 AM

Trick or treat…

It’s that time of the year when there’s just the hint of a chill in the air, along with visions of ghosts and goblins, witches and spiders, smiley Jack of Lanterns and bowls of chocolaty goodies. Halloween. The memories come flooding...

Francesca Reznik

Oct 28, 2021, 12:39 PM

When you’re a Mexican Jew, Halloween and Day of the Dead are complicated

(Carolin Voelker/Getty Images, via JTA)

The true magic of inheriting two cultures in the 21st century is that I get to pick and choose, without being bound by the ideological shackles of my ancestors

Oct 28, 2021, 12:32 AM

Acute Angles: Hallowe’en – More Un-Jewish Than Xmas!

Dear Rabbi. My friend passed onto me that you told her Hallowe’en was even more un-Jewish than Xmas. I can’t see how you can say that as Xmas marks the birth of a new religion that has persecuted Jews...

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