Ask The Rabbis | Should Jews at the Seder Ask God to Smite Our Enemies?
Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that know You not, and upon the families that call not on Your name; for they have devoured...
Talk of the Table | A Naturally Gluten-Free Holiday
For many Jews, Passover is about what you can’t eat. Those who observe the holiday’s dietary rules must avoid chametz: wheat, rye, spelt, barley or oats. But because these ingredients—with the exception, sometimes, of oats—also happen to be the primary sources of gluten in our food, the Passover diet and the gluten-free diet actually look a lot alike.
An Artist’s Secret, Now Fully Revealed
When Charlotte (called Lotte by her family) was eight years old, her mother died. At the time she was told the cause was influenza—the truth was kept a carefully guarded secret.
Talk of the Table | A Tu B’Shevat Seder for Mystics
The epigram, “They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat!” sometimes serves as a tongue-in-cheek synopsis of Jewish holidays: Passover, for example, recounts the original Jewish survival story in an extended banquet punctuated by four cups of wine.
Ask The Rabbis | How Would You Counsel A Sexual Predator?
In every contact with serial bullies, victimizers or predators, we must carefully balance natural empathy for the person before us with solidarity and justice concerning...
Talk of the Table | Michael Twitty’s Kosher Soul Food
Chef Michael Twitty—a writer, culinary historian, cook and Hebrew school teacher—is an African American Jew (he converted at age 22) who uses his culinary prowess to explore the threads of his identity. In 2013, he became a well-known presence in culinary circles when he wrote an open letter to celebrity chef Paula Deen, which quickly went viral
Fiction | The Garden of Evil
“Have you heard about the movie?” Dorota asked. “What movie?” said Sylwia. Why, she thought, am I always the last to know?
Ask the Rabbis | What Does Kneeling Mean to Jews?
Jewish discussions over the NFL protests cover some extra ground. What’s the significance of kneeling, anyway?
Strangers In Their Own Land
The end of the long civil war between Tamil and Buddhist forces promised peace. Instead, Buddhist nationalists found a new enemy: their Muslim neighbors.
Ask The Rabbis | What Is the Most Important High Holidays Prayer?
An especially insightful prayer is Hayom Harat Olam, said after the shofar is blown at the Rosh Hashanah Musaf (afternoon) service: “Today the world is conceived.” It’s a liturgical call to stay open to the pregnant possibilities in this world.
The Lost Magic of the Wooden Pickle Barrel
Blond and rather slender for its type, a pickle barrel stands by the takeout counter of the famous Washington, DC delicatessen Wagshal’s. Lined with plastic, it may satisfy a certain nostalgia but amounts to no more than a storage unit on the bulk-bin grocery aisle—a pale iteration of the big-bellied, oak casks I remember from my childhood.
Visual Moment | A Forgotten Ottoman Way Station
The Ottomans ruled what is now Israel for 400 years, and during that time they made some iconic contributions to the man-made landscape. Sultan Suleiman I (a.k.a. Suleiman the Magnificent) completed the current walls of Jerusalem’s Old City in 1541. The Jaffa Clocktower, finished in 1903, was built to celebrate the silver jubilee of Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Over time, innumerable Ottoman buildings have been lost, replaced by those of British or Israeli design, just as they in turn had replaced those of the Crusaders, Mamluks, Byzantines, Romans, Hasmoneans, Greeks, ancient Israelites, Babylonians, Assyrians and Philistines.