by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 1, 2023 | Antisemitism, Bo, Elul, Nisan, Shevat, Tishrei
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz While the entire world is celebrating, bringing in the new year, Jews are more subdued. Everyone else is flipping their calendars from 2022 to 2023, but the Hebrew calendar is already a quarter of the way through 5783. Why do the Jews have a...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 27, 2022 | Antisemitism, Community, Good and Evil, Psalms
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz When I rode a motorcycle in New York, I used to hang out at bars that catered to a very rough crowd. It amazed me that biker gangs made no attempt to hide their identity and affiliations. They wore their ‘colors’ with pride on the back of...
by Eliyahu Berkowitz | f 18, 2022 | Antisemitism
The Greeks and the Jews should have gotten along. The Greeks were universalists, open to new ideas and intellectualism from all cultures. The intellectual, spiritual, and legal aspects of Judaism were no doubt fascinating to the philosophical Greeks. The Greeks even...
by Eliyahu Berkowitz | f 5, 2022 | Antisemitism, Chanukah, Chosen Nation, God, Prayer, Psalms, Tests and Trials
Hanukkah is quickly approaching and I am reminded of a joke my father, of blessed memory, used to tell every year after lighting the candles. With the doughnuts and potato pancakes arranged on the table and waiting to be eaten, my dad would announce, “They tried to...
by Rabbi Tuly Weisz | f 24, 2022 | Antisemitism, Chosen Nation, Community, Covenant, God, Gratitude, Israel, Psalms, Tests and Trials
The recent surge in antisemitism from the Black Hebrew community regurgitates age-old tropes, namely that another group has replaced the Jews as God’s Chosen People. When Christianity first broke off from Judaism 2,000 years ago, the younger religion claimed that...
by Shira Schechter (Moderator) | f 21, 2022 | Antisemitism
By Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz I recently had to consult with a rabbi about a matter in Jewish law. I am not an incredible scholar with an encyclopedic knowledge of Jewish law, but like most Torah-observant Jews I have a routine that I trust. As long as nothing unusual...
