Written 85 years after Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, a series of Nazi-led pogroms against he Jewish community in Germany and incorporated territories. I am shattered.Bits and pieces here.Bits and pieces there.A hole here.Another one there.7 October 2023 in Israel.The days that have followed.The brutality.The murders.The rapes.The kidnapping.The incessant rockets.The air raid sirens.The fleeing from towns.The destruction.A modern-day pogram in my safe place.In Israel.The Jewish homeland.I am shattered.The threats from the north.Hezbollah.Iran.Hamas in the South.The Islamic Jihad and their rocket falling on a hospital in Gaza.An irresponsible global media that grabbed hold of lies that blamed Israel.An ignorant global community eating it all up, waiting to blame Israel, just waiting to attack Jews.I am shattered.And I’m not even in Israel.I didn’t live the hell on earth.I am here.I don’t need to hide in a safe room.I know where my family is.And, yet I am shattered.I am tired.I am angry. So…
We have just entered the Jewish month of Elul, the last month of the Jewish year. As we prepare to welcome the new Jewish year 5784, our tradition…
Hanay, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons Tomorrow night, as we mark Tisha B’Av, the day we mourn the destruction of ancient Israel and the exile of…
There was a Torah scholar in the town Medzibuz (presently in the Ukraine) who was not respected by the townspeople. Frustrated by this lack of respect, the scholar…
In our Torah portion this morning, specifically in B’Midbar 35, we read how the community must protect an individual who accidentally kills another from what the Torah refers…
Me, Cheryl, and Abby on the cover of Shalom Today soon after arriving in South Florida 21 years ago, on July 15th, 2002, I began my journey as…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Tw8HQ3cPk The Bat Kol, a heavenly voice that appears in rabbinic literature, serves many purposes. In response to the devastating implosion of OceanGate’s Titan submersible, I take a…
Jewish tradition teaches us that we dads are required to do a few important things when it comes to raising our children. We’re supposed to teach them: Torah,…
For the past several days, terrorists have been firing rockets into Israel. At least one person was killed, and several have been injured and traumatized. Today, rockets were…
We’re in an interesting time period on the Jewish calendar, a period known as Sefirat Ha’Omer – the counting of the Omer. The Omer, or sheaf, was an…
I am so grateful that Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz invited me to join her and other leaders to stand with her in opposition to dangerous laws being forced…