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Sep 8, 2026, 1:56 PM

Asking Forgiveness from non-Jewish Israelis

President Herzog, June 20223 (Haim Zach/GPO)

When we here in Israel soon gather for the Tishrei holidays and examine the past Hebrew calendar year’s deeds, including interpersonal relationships, we’ll most likely focus on our familiar – Jewish – environs. There are good reasons why we...

Sep 8, 2026, 1:40 PM

This past December I became seriously ill, and only later did I understand how close the angel of death had come on that first night in the hospital. Fortunately, those caring for me made sure he was ultimately kept...

Hande Gençünal

Sep 8, 2026, 4:08 AM

A Litany Born From Drought, on Avinu Malkeinu

We repeat this prayer every year, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, morning and afternoon. This year, rereading the actual Talmudic story, a detail I'd always skipped past caught my eye. On the twenty-fifth page of tractate Ta'anit, the story...

Sep 8, 2026, 1:48 AM

Politicization and Commercialization: Selichot Traditions

The annual cycle prompts memories at certain times of year. As a young adult, it hit me that for several consecutive years I made critical decisions amidst the Tishrei holidays, if not at the end of Elul, then by...

Sharona Margolin Halickman

Sep 7, 2026, 4:35 AM

The Haftara for the first day of Rosh HaShana (Shmuel I:1:1-2:10) tells the story of Chana and how she yearned for a child. In Shmuel I:1:9-11 we read: Chana stood up after eating in Shilo and after drinking; Eli the...

Sep 6, 2026, 2:51 PM

The Angel from Worcester

Worcester Cemetery: The Gravesite of Rav Avraham Kaufman

How prayers at Ancestors’ Graves Opened the Way to an Astonishing Encounter “Do you mean you met Elijah the Prophet?” I was giving a sermon at a shtiebel by my brother Baruch’s home in Brooklyn near Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights. ...

Lauren Gladstone

Sep 4, 2026, 6:55 PM

September Was a Nice Idea

Every August, I have the same thought: September would be a wonderful month to go away. The weather is beautiful. The summer crowds have gone home. Airfares begin to come down. Europe is still warm. Restaurants are easier to get...

Sep 3, 2026, 6:26 PM

Rome, the Pantheon, and Why Jerusalem Needs a Bigdei Kehuna Shop

We just got back from Rome, and I have to say, the city gives one a little déjà vu when you live in Israel. Not in a bad way. In the way where you keep doing double-takes, looking at...

Sep 2, 2026, 10:23 PM

The Night Before, The Night Before Rosh Hashanah

Poor guy, how is he going to get to sleep?

Twas the night before the night before Rosh Hashanah and all through the land, the rabbis were schvitzing, were their services all planned? Were the sermons long enough to make people know that it was not Shabbos they were there...

Sep 2, 2026, 5:22 AM

Have You No Sense of Decency?

Army lawyer Joseph Welch at the House Un-American Hearings, June 9, 1954. (CalVet Connect)

I woke up this morning (Thank Gd), made some coffee, and with my dog sitting on my lap, began reading the news. And there it was – the Prime Minister's wife suggested that the fact that a former senior...

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