Since I was born and until I was ten years old, I lived in the neighborhood of Palermo in Buenos Aires. Three blocks away from our apartment was, and still is, the Botanic Garden. I have fond memories of that park and even have some pictures of me as a child on the playground there. …
64 million. That’s the number of Americans with one vaccine shot according to the Washington Post, as I sit here writing this week’s clergy blog. I got my first shot a few weeks back and will complete my second in another few B’Ezrat Hashem. President Biden just announced we can all expect to have vaccines …
By Robin Jacobson. Like many, I’m a longtime fan of the historical novels of Geraldine Brooks – Year of Wonders, March, Caleb’s Crossing, People of the Book, and The Secret Chord. In this extraordinary year, these novels seem newly relevant. They encompass pandemics, racial justice, leadership, Jewish continuity – all topics that resonate in 2021. …
I was recently speaking with a dad about his son’s studies for his bar mitzvah. It was a conversation I have had dozens of times during the pandemic: how many guests are allowed in the sanctuary? Does everyone need to wear a mask? How does Zoom work? Should we postpone? Will it be meaningful? (The …
This is the fourth week of the month. For Reflections Off the Bimah, the fourth week features thought leaders from throughout the Jewish world and beyond. These special posts give you the opportunity to consider important opinions you may not readily encounter. As we are in the midst of a rabbinic search for our next rabbi …
Let’s party like it’s 2020! The pandemic was supposed to be 6 weeks long. That’s not scientific fact or some politician’s wishful thinking, it’s just what we told ourselves. “It’ll be 6 weeks” Then summer came. . “Well the kids HAVE to go back to school in the Fall” Then it was like “ oh …
By Robin Jacobson. As a child, learning in school about the American Civil War, I felt relieved that my family bore no guilt for American slavery. During the sad centuries when Americans brutally enslaved other human beings, my ancestors, thankfully (it seemed to me) were far away in some Eastern European shtetl. Hearing about the …
This is the fourth week of the month. For Reflections Off the Bimah, the fourth week features thought leaders from throughout the Jewish world and beyond. These special posts give you the opportunity to consider important opinions you may not readily encounter. Today is International Holocaust Memorial Day. January 27 marks the day the Auschwitz concentration …
By Robin Jacobson. To many Jewish families with memories of hard times, Meyerland in the 1970s was the Promised Land. This Jewish neighborhood in Houston, Texas, was home to big synagogues, Jewish schools, a Jewish Community Center, Jewish delis and shops, not to mention a proud display of high-flying American, Texas, and Israeli flags. But …
This is the fifth week of the month for Reflections Off the Bimah. Today ends a very long and difficult year. Tonight, we shift into 2021 with much anticipation of possibilities ahead and relief at gaining distance from the recent past. Pandemic, isolation, professional insecurities, anxieties, politics, injustices and more turned 2020 on its head. …
This is the fourth week of the month. For Reflections Off the Bimah, the fourth week features thought leaders from throughout the Jewish world and beyond. These special posts give you the opportunity to consider important opinions you may not readily encounter. This week’s blog is posted ‘erev Christmas’ which is a Jewish tradition all by …
By Robin Jacobson. Here’s literary news to celebrate: new novels from two of Israel’s best-known authors – A.B. Yehoshua and Eshkol Nevo – have arrived in American bookstores and libraries in English translation. The Tunnel by A.B. Yehoshua Widely acclaimed as one of the giants of Israeli literature, A.B. Yehoshua was born in Jerusalem in …
Do you believe in miracles? I know we are all science abiding, small “l” liberals living in an “enlightened world” but really, do you? I know some of you out there have beaten difficult cancer odds, mental illness, physical disabilities, bounced back from personal upheavals in your home lives, and seen your children survive trying …
I don’t know about you, but I need something uplifting and light right now. I can distract myself only so long with streaming services. After all, the ‘real world’ is very serious – politics, pandemic, isolation, remote work, remote school and so much more. Reports say the next 2-3 months will be the worst of …
By Robin Jacobson. The intertwined history of two Baghdadi Jewish families in China – the Sassoon and Kadoorie families – is the stuff of epic novels. The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties that Helped Create Modern China by Jonathan Kaufman vividly tells the families’ drama-filled story of ambition, generosity, and exploitation within …
This is the fourth week of the month. For Reflections Off the Bimah, the fourth week features thought leaders from throughout the Jewish world and beyond. These special posts give you the opportunity to consider important opinions you may not readily encounter. For this week, I share Steven Windmueller, Ph.D reflections on Jewish framings of Thanksgiving. …
Escape You know what it says in the news these days. We’re living in an apocalyptic political nightmare where the election is never over, the president refuses to concede and American democracy as we know it is on shaky ground. There’s tremendous public distrust of our institutions and to indulge yourselves in the daily …
I could not watch the election returns last night. I normally love to see the numbers come in, hear about little counties in far off States and see Washington’s political wonks in their glory. I remember going with a bunch of friends to a bar on Capitol Hill in 1992 to watch the returns come …
By Robin Jacobson. A fun suspense novel topped with a generous scoop of Jewish history is a winning combination, even if the history relates to the origins of dark anti-Jewish tropes. Here are two entertaining and informative reads: The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols by Nicholas Meyer and The Order by Daniel Silva. Both books …
This is the fourth week of the month. For Reflections Off the Bimah, the fourth week features thought leaders from throughout the Jewish world and beyond. These special posts give you the opportunity to consider important opinions you may not readily encounter. For this week, I want to share a growing concern I have related to …
A tour of the Bender Sanctuary exploring the technology pieces allowing services on the High Holidays, Shabbat and other times to feel so special.
Every book browser knows that libraries and bookstores typically separate books broadly into fiction and non-fiction – fiction in these bookcases and non-fiction in the bookcases over there. But some adventurous authors, experimenting with new forms of narration and storytelling, write books that blur the border between fact and fiction. This is seen vividly in …
By Robin Jacobson. Goldie Goldbloom’s novel On Division is a rarity among books about the Hasidic world. Unlike many books on Hasidic life, it is not a bitter exposé by an ex-community member. Nor is it an admiring outsider’s romanticized view of an exotic culture. Instead Goldbloom, a Hasidic Jew writing from within the community, …
By Robin Jacobson. Two thousand years ago, on a mountaintop overlooking the Dead Sea, 967 Jewish men, women, and children faced down the military might of the Roman empire. When defeat became certain, they chose to take their own lives rather than die at enemy hands or be enslaved. This is the defiant story of …
By Tiarra Joslyn. Over the summer, British rapper Wiley faced backlash – including permanent bans from Facebook and Twitter – after he made several anti-Semitic tweets, which included common anti-Semitic tropes such as how Jewish people control business interests. Conspiracy theories about the Jewish people are nothing new; Jews have been used as scapegoats for …
This is the fourth week of the month. For Reflections Off the Bimah, the fourth week features thought leaders from throughout the Jewish world and beyond. These special posts give you the opportunity to consider important opinions you may not readily encounter. This week’s post comes from Rabbanit Dasi Fruchter and Marc Fein. This was originally …
I miss you. I miss coming together as a community. I miss chatting over tuna after services. I miss the amazing banana bread with chocolate chips from Sunflower Bakery after services. (This is my Achilles Heal of sweets.) I miss hugs and handshakes. I miss the voices of children filling the playground and the hallways …
Today is Tisha B’Av, the 9th of Av. This is a day of intense sadness on the Jewish calendar as the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem are commemorated (587BCE and 70CE). As this is also the fifth week of the month, for Reflections Off the Bimah, I share this piece from Rabbi Brad Hirschfield. …
Zochreynu l’chayim melech chafetz b’chayim v’chatveynu b’sefer hachayim l’ma’ancha elohim chayim “Remember us for life, Sovereign who delights in life, and write us in the book of life, for Your sake, God of life.” While it is not even the Fourth of July yet, many of us have already been looking at the High Holidays. …
This is the fourth week of the month. For Reflections Off the Bimah, the fourth week features thought leaders from throughout the Jewish world and beyond. These special posts give you the opportunity to consider important opinions you may not readily encounter. This week’s post comes from Tali Moscowitz, Beth El’s Assistant Education Director, who has …
Stumbled out of bed this morning. It was one of those “hit the snooze multiple times” type experiences. What’s wrong with me? I don’t need to make meditations at 8am. There’s a whole days’ worth of time to get in a session. I can explain. When I was very young, my parents became involved in …
“What will you take with you to the other side of Covid?” That was the prompt an interviewer asked me for an on-line magazine this week. It is an important question. After quarantine is over and social distancing restrictions ease, what will we have learned during this period? Additionally, at the time of the interview, …
← Previous Page
Next Page →
