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Tikkun Olam in a Frying Pan
Michal Nahman tells us about the Bristol-based Mizrachi food project. As a kid, it felt like our family was an odd and outlandish mixture. I’d hear my dad’s Ladino intermingled with my mum’s family’s Romanian in our Israeli home in a lower middle-class suburb of Toronto. ‘Ach Patron del mundo’, my dad would plead, as […]
Do Not Underestimate the Determination of a Quiet Rabbi
Gloria Tessler considers the welcome activities of some of our rabbinate but decries the misguided priorities of others. When we think of great rabbis we sometimes look back to philosophers of the past. Maimonides, the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Nachman of Breslau, Abraham Heschel, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Great thinkers who have died and left us […]
Pandemic Passover 2.0: What Have We Learned?
As Pesach approaches Nathan Abrams argues that we need to step up to help remote Jews. As Pesach approaches it is a good time to take stock of the past year and what we have learned from the ongoing pandemic and continued lockdowns. In July last year, I wrote for JewThink, how things were looking […]
A Scholarly Unorthodox
Karen H. Skinazi reviews Zalman Newfield’s Degrees of Separation. When my teenage son was little, he used to sway back and forth if he was concentrating hard on something—a book, a puzzle, a Lego creation. ‘Who knew shokeling was hereditary?’ we joked. My husband comes from Hasidische stock. If my son still shokels while he […]
Introducing Tsitsit, the Jewish Fringe
Alastair Falk tells us about a new initiative and wants your support. You will know the feeling. It’s the Edinburgh Fringe and there’s this huge list of performances which you are desperately working out how to choose what to try and see. Of course, for Jews it’s always slightly easier: just look for shows that […]
Zoom Connections
Roma Cohen writes about organising services, via Zoom, for a small and aging regional congregation. On Sunday 26th July 2020, the 102nd Annual General Meeting of our small northern ‘friendly, warm and welcoming’ Harrogate synagogue took place for the first time through the medium of Zoom. The much respected, dedicated Chair of fifty years plus […]
Being Jewish in Aberdeen, Rosh Hashanah 5781
Mark Taylor reflects on a strange year in Britain’s most northerly congregation. Looking back at this year, as you do during Rosh Hashanah, it has been a surreal year. This is Aberdeen Synagogue’s 75th anniversary year, and plans were ongoing to have a celebratory party but all of this has been put on hold. The weather is still beautiful. It has […]
How Will This Rosh HaShanah Be Different From Every Other? It Won’t
Nathan Abrams reflects on how there will be little change to his Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. There is a great deal of talk about how Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur will be different this year for many people but for me it won’t. In fact, it will be better. I live in Bangor, in […]
Will the Board Speak Truth to Priti Patel?
Looking ahead to tonight’s BoDCast with Priti Patel, Jon Abrams wonders if the Board of Deputies will find the courage to speak the truth to power. I’m looking forward to tonight’s Board of Deputies BoDcast featuring a conversation with Home Secretary Priti Patel. Will the Board schmooze with Priti? Or will it take seriously its commendable commitment […]
Reflecting on Rosh Hashana: A Call for Contributions
JewThink would like to mark this extraordinary Rosh Hashanah by collating and publishing some reflections on other Jewish new years past and present. These can be brief, funny and irreverent or longer and more reflective. What was your most disastrous Rosh Hashanah? What was your most uplifting? What new possibilities does Rosh Hashanah in semi-lockdown […]