I decided that I’d put a unique “spin” (pun intended) on one of the iconic symbols of Chanukah – the dreidel – the spinning top. In terms of its relative importance, it is overshadowed by the ...

Acclaimed a cappella group Six13 just released a new Chanukah video – a good enough reason to meet and talk to them about their music. And about the trend over the last decade or so among Jewish a ...

A little more than 50 years ago, on December 6, 1975, a makeshift Shabbat prayer service was held in the cavernous ballroom of Lincoln Square Synagogue, which was then located on West 69th Street and ...

One thing they all have in common is the unique character of the candle which shares its light without diminishing its own ability to shine. Just as the flame of a candle can do so, so too can the ...

Every so often, in the quiet shuffle of auctions and dealer lists, an item surfaces that makes the collector’s pulse quicken in a way only fellow bibliophiles truly understand. Recently, I was ...

According to the Chofetz Chaim, anyone can start one. He suggests the following steps: After separating maaser or tithe funds, one-third of the amount should be saved towards a free loan fund until ...

The Dutchess County Conservative Party was promoting a new governor for next year. The sign “Retire Hochul” said it all. In a bucolic setting at the northern end of the Metro-North’s Hudson line, ...

Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov addresses the crowd at the shloshim for his daughter held at Da Mikelle Palazzo in Forest Hills. It’s not the natural order of life for a parent to bury a child. When such a ...

Bronze sculpture of an ibex from Iran, 1st millennium BCE. Fishes are not named in either sedra – only the requirement of having fins and scales. Be aware that fish can have different types of scales ...

In Va’etchanan, we declared the Shema: “Hear, O Israel…” A moment of thunder and tenderness, of inheritance wrapped in presence. In Eikev, we continue it, not in recitation, but in enactment. Here, in ...

In the financial world, few things offer more comfort than receiving a large sum of cash. The challenge is how to handle a windfall responsibly based on the markets, economic environment, and personal ...

To help prepare us for Tisha B’Av, we can look to some of the messages from the kinnos that we say on that day. Kinnah #26 is based on a famous Midrash from Eicha Rabbah that at the time Bnei Yisrael ...