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by Esther Cohen Kol Nidre is Aramaic for All Vows. Sung, it is wildly deeply beautiful. We all need forgiveness. Forgive me forgive me for arrogance for acting as though I know more than you as though I know better wanting you to do things different from your instincts you never have to go […]
Read MoreTHE YOM KIPPUR CANTOR — SOMEONE TO ENVY Translated from the Yiddish by Curt Leviant IN ALL of Kasrilevke’s history, there was no finer funeral than Reb Melekh the Cantor’s. Reb Melekeh was a pauper, the poorest of the poor, just like the rest of the people in the shtetl of Kasrilevke. He was given […]
Read Moreby Dan Grossman from the Spring 2017 issue of Jewish Currents THE RABBI was terrified. Just minutes before Kol Nidre he stood in his office chanting the prayers under his breath, worrying for the twentieth time that his sermon was too high-minded, and flipping through the tall, gold-spined books on his shelf, as if he […]
Read Moreby Lawrence Bush God, the Terrible God is on the move and will again besiege my soul from sundown to sundown
Read Moreby Esther Cohen Peter said do you understand how possible it is to have a good life with very little it is the time of year when we can forgive all our wanting, when we
Read MoreText and Illustrations by Lawrence Bush From the Autumn 2016 issue of Jewish Currents This is the first of a series of essays about the Jewish calendar and life-cycle observances, created as part of our new Schappes Center for Cultural Jewish Life, a school-without-walls for families interested in non-theistic participation in Jewish holidays, rituals, and […]
Read MoreA video showing the beheading by ISIS of Steven Sotloff, a 31-year-old American-Israeli journalist and grandson of two Holocaust survivors, was released on this date in 2014. Sotloff broke the Benghazi story in Libya in 2012, telling CNN that U.S. media reports about the killings being associated with rioters were wrong and identifying the actual […]
Read Moreby Alan Elsner Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has made most American Jewish leaders, both secular and religious, deeply uncomfortable during his campaign for the White House. However, until now, many have stayed publicly silent on his candidacy. Trump’s intemperate talk against Muslims, women, immigrants, bereaved military families and others, as well as his campaign’s use […]
Read MoreOpening the Door to 1.5º and a Carbon Market by Rabbi Judy Weiss I’M A RABBI, climate activist, and grandmother, and the way I mix these identities seems constantly to surprise my friends. In 2014 they asked: “Why go to the New York climate march just three days before Rosh HaShanah? One march won’t change […]
Read MoreThe anarchist Yiddish newspaper Fraye Arbiter Shtime (Free Voice of Labor) sponsored its annual Yom Kippur concert and ball, “with a pleasant… and tasteful buffet,” at Clarendon Hall, 114 East 13th Street, in New York City on this date in 1893. This mass anti-religious event was met by “an estimated mob of five to six […]
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