What constitutes being a “member of a tribe”? Most individuals identify as being part some larger group; the group forms part of a person’s sense of self and frequently provides a feeling of belonging and pride.

In Lech Lecha, this past week’s Torah portion, God commands Abraham to circumcise all the males of his household, […]

Do you remember marching with your friends at the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) rallies in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s?  You can now easily recapture those days of activism, the era of the fight to free Soviet Jews trapped in Russia under the Communist regime, simply by using […]

King David’s life is intertwined with the holiday of Shavuot.  His lineage and birth are announced in Megilat Rut, the Book of Ruth, and heralded David’s reign. Megilat Rut is customarily read in the synagogue on the holiday of Shavuot.  David died on the holiday of Shavuot, according to the Talmud Yerushalmi [Hagigah 2:3; […]

On May 26, 1940, the New York Times  daily column,  “Program for Today at the World’s Fair,” announced an event at the Temple of Religion: a symposium on the “role of Orthodox Jewry in promoting Jewish education among Jewish youth by Dr. Bernard Revel, Dean of Yeshiva College, Rabbi Joseph H. Lookstein, Dr. […]

Passover raises thoughts and questions about slavery and freedom.  Me-‘avdut le-herut … mi-shi’bud li-ge’ulah – from slavery to freedom , from bondage to redemption – these phrases from the Pesach Haggadah [Mishna Pesachim 10:5] commemorate and celebrate the Exodus from Egypt.

The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ), spearheaded by Jacob Birnbaum, […]

How do you say “Purim carnival” in Hebrew? Perhaps Purimta; it rhymes with the names of many of Haman’s sons, such as Parshandata and Vayzata. What about Pur-Rina? Or possibly Pur-Ditsa?  Daniel Persky suggested these terms in a 1932 contest to coin a Hebrew name for the Purim carnival in Tel-Aviv.  After all, the word carnival […]

Half a century ago, in 1972, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) organized “From Potma to Purim Vigil and Fast,” a demonstration on behalf of  Sylva Zalmanson and other prisoners of conscience in Potma, a notorious Russian labor camp. What were the prisoners’ crimes? They had expressed the desire to leave the Soviet […]