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Oct 13, 2026, 7:32 PM

What to do with the Lulav and Etrog?

Every year, as we approach the final day of Sukkot, shake the lulav in all directions and inhale the exquisite fragrance of the etrog one last time, I already know where I will place these sacred items. I refer to...

Jonathan Muskat

Oct 7, 2026, 6:47 AM

There is a Time for Everything

Sometimes a story begins with one reaction and then develops into another. When news of the flydubai incident first broke, the reaction was simple: Baruch Hashem. People survived. Passengers acted with extraordinary courage. People ran toward danger to protect one another. There was...

Mihran Kalaydjian

Oct 6, 2026, 3:22 AM

We Will Dance on Simchat Torah. But October 7 Will Dance With Us.

Three years after the Hamas massacre, the Jewish calendar asks something almost impossible of us: to carry unbearable memory into one of our most joyful days and still choose life. There are dates that mark history. And then there are...

Oct 5, 2026, 11:28 AM

The Man Who ‘Didn’t Know’ — and a Nation That Must Ask

(courtesy)

There are moments when reality cries out so deafeningly that the silence surrounding it becomes overwhelming. The Tishrei holiday season in Israel used to symbolize family serenity, renewal, and autumnal grace. Today, it stands seared as our national fault...

Oct 4, 2026, 11:41 AM

Police State or Anarchy? Pre-Election Holiday Events and Confrontational Default

Jaffa Gate Baigele Carts and Venders (ChatGPT-generated )

Not yet 10:00 a.m. Radio interviewers interrupt their interviewee. The kind of interruption that triggers "terrorist attack" in your mind before hearing the breaking news. Fly Dubai. Communication terminated. The pilot pressed a trouble button. The hijack trouble button. Details...

Irina Zavina-Tare

Oct 4, 2026, 8:35 AM

The October 8 Jew I Became

There are days that divide a life into before and after. The birth of a child. A marriage. A death. A diagnosis. We all have dates that become markers, moments after which we are somehow no longer quite the same...

Orly Lavi Travish

Oct 4, 2026, 5:53 AM

For years, living in America, I have carried a quiet ache. It comes from the persistent distance I have felt between the local Jewish community and the Israelis living right beside it. We walk the same streets, work side by...

Dovid Flinkenstein

Oct 3, 2026, 9:28 AM

Was It Staged in Plane Sight?

Why are there so many conspiracy theories about this attempted hijacking? Why are people insisting that it was staged, or that perhaps there was merely some kind of fight between the pilots, an emergency landing, and then an elaborate...

Adam O. Goldstein

Oct 2, 2026, 10:54 PM

A Plumber, a Dentist, 67 Minutes, and the Miracle of Survival

Tell your children

There is an old joke that if you put two Jews in a room, you get three opinions. Apparently, if you put a plane full of people headed to Israel in an emergency, you discover a plumber who can...

Eliezer Simcha Weiss

Oct 2, 2026, 7:14 PM

Why We Dance on Simchas Torah

On Pesach, we ask, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” The answer is clear. Pesach looks back. We remember how Hashem took us out of Egypt, tell our children where we came from, and relive the beginning...

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