When I was a boy, my grandparents were my most significant Jewish influence. We always spent parts of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur with them, going to the great shul on Hooks Ln in Baltimore, Beth El. The Rabbi then was Mark Loeb, an exceptional human being who had rare oratory skills and was …
Beth El’s theme of the year is Shmirat HaGuf – Caring for Our Bodies. Across the congregation, we will explore our physical, mental, spiritual, and relationship health. Our lives are pulled in so many directions and caring for ourselves often gets lowest priority. There are countless podcasts and numerous articles encouraging us to slow down, …
By Robin Jacobson. Each semester when Georgetown University professor Charles King meets new college students in his social science classes, he discovers that many hold two discordant beliefs. On the one hand, the students wholly condemn racism and white nationalism and decry America’s long history of oppressing Native Americans and African Americans. On the other …
This is the fifth week of the month and allows for another outside blog. Sharing in the Nats’ World Series victory this week, let’s celebrate Jews involved in professional baseball including 3rd baseman Alex Bregman (Astros) and owner Ted Lerner (Nationals). And for those worried about what to do in the baseball ‘off season’… pitchers …
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. I share this article from Rabbi Danny Siegel. Rabbi Siegel has been on …
In about 15 minutes my Dad is going to arrive to help me put up my Sukkah. It takes me back to our home in Baltimore circa 1995 when we built our first Sukkah on the deck of the townhouse while I blasted Hootie and The Blowfish from my boombox . My Dad actually worked …
There was a wonderful feeling throughout Beth El during Rosh Hashana. People reconnected with each other, reflected on the past year and hopefully gained new clarity on issues or struggles they may be facing. We prayed together, learned together and sang together. Our community’s vibrancy was felt. Next week is Yom Kippur and we will …
By Robin Jacobson. When we tell the story of Israel, it’s often a story about European Jews. Theodor Herzl of Vienna dreamt of a Jewish state; David Ben-Gurion, born in Poland, proclaimed Israel’s statehood; and other European Jews escaped the Holocaust to build modern Israel. Yet half of today’s Israeli Jews have ancestral roots in …
This week 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. I share this article from the Times of Israel as Rosh Hashanah …
By Robin Jacobson. In August 1940, Varian Fry bid farewell to his comfortable life in New York City and headed for Nazi-controlled France. He hoped to rescue 200 prominent artists and authors, many Jewish, who had fled German-occupied countries for France, initially a safe haven. Now these luminaries, all blacklisted by the Nazis, were in …
This is the fifth week of the month and allows for another outside blog. As Saturday and Sunday begin the month of Elul, I offer this blog by Alon Goshen-Gottstein which was originally published in the Times of Israel (ToI). The ToI describes him as the founder and director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute. He …
This week 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. I share this blog after spending an afternoon with my daughters at …
It’s hard to know what to say anymore. 253 mass shootings in 2019 alone in America and people are devastated. Just check out this Time Cover listing every city with a mass shooting this year. America is sick, it is polarized, it is nasty, it is angry and it is deeply wounded. Some people blame …
Camp Swig no longer exists. It was the summer camp I attended in the 70’s and 80’s in Saratoga, CA. Established in the 50’s, it was long the only Jewish summer camp of the Reform Movement on the West Coast. The grounds held a camp that my father attended when he was a youth but …
By Robin Jacobson. When a longtime crime reporter decides to try his hand at fiction, he might just discover that he has a talent for writing murder mysteries. This is what happened to Harri Nykänen. After 20 years covering the criminal underworld as a journalist for Scandinavia’s largest daily newspaper, Nykänen began penning murder mysteries, …
By Robin Jacobson. As Moses might have said, “You can take the Jews out of Egypt, but you can’t take Egypt out of the Jews.” It is hard to shed a past life and homeland, even one of misery and persecution. This is the theme of two outstanding new books by Jewish émigrés from the …
This week 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. Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is an Orthodox rabbi in Phoenix, AZ. In 2012 and …
Question- and stay with me here- have you ever hung out with a group of Cantors? You might be thinking “ Wow, I’m imagining a bunch of people talking over each other, singing over each other, comparing Tfilah and Trope styles and their favorite old time Hazzanim.” And you’d be somewhat right! Or, well, kind …
I love skee ball. My family and I have made this frivolous summer activity into a competitive, ticket hording sport. Rehoboth’s Funland costs .25 cents per game for 8 balls and a long runway before the jump to the targets. Zinky’s, also on the boardwalk, is .10 cents per game with 6 balls and a …
This week 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 entering summer, I offer the Jewish Journal’s summer reading list. …
As I sat in on the final rehearsal for the Bima To Broadway To Beltway concert listening to a rendition of “Gesher” by Judith Silver, I couldn’t help thinking how cool this concert was going to be. Yes “cool” is absolutely the word for it. Hazzanim Arianne Brown, Elisheva Dienstfry and Hinda Labovitz created this …
In parenting, it is too easy to forget the ‘big picture.’ The immediate overwhelms the senses and focuses my attention on the messy room or the homework assignment not yet begun. Maybe the fabrication of short term emergencies causes an adrenaline surge reminiscent of our ancestors’ ‘fight or flight’ responses… except they were fleeing wild …
Tomorrow night I will be teaching a class for Tikkun Leil Shavuot on the beauty of Nusach ( The Soul of Jewish Music) as I call it. Before we continue, some definitions are in order. Like many concepts in Jewish practice, Nusach can have a few different meanings. It can refer literally to the text of …
This is the fifth week of the month and allows for another outside blog. This 2011 post in eJewishPhilanthropy was written by Rabbi Michael Comins, the founder of TorahTrek: The Center for Jewish Wilderness Spirituality. As we are shifting to summer, we will have many opportunities to enjoy the outdoors. Make sure to appreciate the …
This week 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 entering the Memorial Day weekend, this blog was originally posted …
I once had a colleague that said- tongue and cheek- the reason he became a Rabbi was to make the service seem faster- since it always seems to progress more quickly when one is on the Bima. True, it does. But I quite like it in the pews as well, where I don’t have to …
Hate has no home here. I cannot repeat this statement often enough, forcefully enough or loudly enough. As we recognized Yom HaSHoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, this week, cried at the anti-Semitic terror attack on Chabad of Poway last Shabbat, were disappointed by two students at Whitman High School who posted a picture of themselves …
By Robin Jacobson. On a London train platform in the late 1930s, future children’s author Michael Bond noticed a sad huddle of Jewish refugee children with identity tags dangling from their necks. These vulnerable children inspired his beloved fictional character, Paddington, a young refugee bear who alights at Paddington Station wearing a tag with the …
This week is the fourth week of the month. For Reflections Off the Bimah, the fourth week features thought leaders from throughout the Jewish world. These special posts give you the opportunity to consider important opinions you may not readily encounter. As we are in the midst of Passover, I am bringing a piece by Rabbi …
Rabbis and Cantors are known for reusing material for sermons, songs, teachings, concerts, what have you. I usually try to avoid that if I can absolutely help it; sometimes, though, if I get in a bind, I will bring something from one presentation and use it with another group. That being said, this throwaway line …
Gratitude is a very Jewish act. Too often, being grateful is lost in the business of life, the noisiness of expectations and the hubris of accomplishments. Our very name though, Jews or Yehudim, derive from a moment of extreme gratitude. In Genesis 29:35, Leah names one of her sons Judah as an act of praise. …
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