Jewish Word | Pikuach Nefesh
In Chaim Potok’s 1969 novel The Promise, sequel to the better-known The Chosen, there’s a scene that piercingly illustrates the Jewish legal emphasis on saving a life.
Can I Get An Amen?
In Numbers 5:22, a priest orders a woman who is accused of adultery to drink water that is mixed with dust from a tabernacle floor....
Jewish Word | The Mourner’s Kaddish
The Mourner’s Kaddish, a prayer with ancient roots that a person says upon the loss of a parent, sibling or spouse, is one of the most instantly recognizable Jewish prayers of all time.
Jewish Word | Jews of Color
While “Jews of color” is not an exclusively American term, it was born of this country’s complex interrelationship between race and identity.
Jewish Word | When the Past Is Present and the Present Is Past
We Jews are obsessed with history. From ancient to modern times, from the Flood to the Exodus to the destruction of the Temples and the exiles, from the Middle Ages to the Inquisition and the pogroms to the Holocaust to the establishment of the State of Israel, we recall and retell our history.
Jewish Word | Challah
The word “challah” made its first appearance more than 2,500 years ago.
Jewish Word | Emet
Suppose you’ve made a golem, a man-shaped figure of clay, and you want to bring it to life.
Jewish Word | Bark Mitzvah
The first known bark mitzvah took place in 1958 in Beverly Hills, California.
Jewish Word | The Wandering Jew
Every autumn, Jews all over the world read the Torah portion Lech Lecha, in which God instructs the future patriarch Abraham to abandon his native land for a promised one
Jewish Word | Is Everyone a White Supremacist?
The term, historically used to describe an adherent to the ideology of white supremacy, is now thrown around so often that it no longer is always clear what it means. That’s a dangerous trend.
Jewish Word | Israeli Elections Slogans Get Personal
As Israeli elections near, Moment looks at the history of political slogans in the country’s elections. From Mapai to Rabin, Netanyahu and Benny Gantz.
Jewish Word | Shamash
n the 1946 film The Big Sleep, based on the Raymond Chandler mystery of the same name, Carmen—the promiscuous, drug-addicted younger sister of Lauren Bacall’s character—sizes up Philip Marlowe, played by Humphrey Bogart, and asks him, “What are you, a prizefighter?” Bogart responds, “No, I’m a shamus.” “What’s a shamus?” she inquires. “It’s a private detective,” he answers. Yes, Bogart is using the Yiddish version—more popularly spelled “shammes”—of the Hebrew word, “shamash.”