A Tale of Two New Years

By Gabriel Weinstein Optimism and excitement for the new year still permeate the crisp winter air as in the second week of 2011. Lofty New Years vows to cut down on late night snacks or quit watching reality TV shows are still manageable goals and not forgotten ideals. Only four months ago the same unencumbered joy and boundless passion sprung forth from synagogues and family dinners during Rosh Hashanah. We penned our New Years resolutions during the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah and wished “L’Shanah Tovah.” Despite the overlap between Rosh Hashanah and New Years, a majority of Jews propose midnight toasts New Years Eve and watch the ball drop. But for hundreds of years Jews anxiously awaited midnight as gentile peers rang in the New Year by unleashing ...

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Hanukkah Throwback: Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins

By Sala Levin When you're a child, Hanukkah is truly the most wonderful time of the year.  There's something magical about watching the multi-colored candles add up night after night, about your family stumbling their way through songs whose words no one can entirely remember, even about the gold-wrapped gelt that you gobbled down despite the fact that they tasted vaguely of plastic.  Sometimes it snows, and those are the best years: when you come into the kitchen, your boots trailing snow, to hear latkes sizzling in hot oil and to see a present, neatly wrapped in blue and white paper, sitting at your spot on the table. But then the teenage years come, and then the dreaded adulthood, and Hanukkah is pedestrian, dull--almost, it seems, irrelevant.  No one bothers to grate potatoes for latkes anymore--tradition traded...

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