https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whoopi_Goldberg_by_David_Shankbone_(3026904000).jpgDavid Shankbone from USA, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons On Monday, Whoopi Goldberg, one of the hosts of ABC’s “The View,” was suspended for two weeks after insisting that the Holocaust was not about race. Prior to the announcement of her suspension by Karen Godwin, President of ABC News, Goldberg apologized online Monday night and on “The View” Tuesday morning. Given this, many are upset at ABC’s actions. Suspending her for two weeks, many feel, seems to be a bit excessive. This being said, temporary “banishment” after a serious transgression is prescribed by Jewish tradition. The Talmud details twenty-four offenses that could lead one to being suspended from the community. The great medieval Jewish scholar, Maimonides lists these twenty-four offenses, one being to act in a way that encourages others who don’t know better to sin. By doing this, or committing one of the other twenty-three offenses, one could face nezifah,…
Yesterday, as the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we heard the reminders we all know too well: “Remember!” and “Never Again!” The Jewish community knows all too…
Last week, scientists at the University of South Florida’s Genomics program and the Center for Global Health and Infectious Disease Research shared a study that documents how the DNA of…
In honor of Shabbat Shirah and Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, I have put together the video above. This Shabbat, Shabbat Shirah (Shabbat of Song), we read Mi…
The Talmud says: “Teach your tongue to say: I do not know. If you don’t, you will become entangled in a web of deceit.” (Berakhot 4a) At the foundation of…
Last Friday, I got to witness something so beautiful. We had grandparent’s Shabbat in our Early Childhood Center. As I looked out at the children, who were so…
There are a reported 15,166,200 Jews on the face of the earth. While this might seem like an impressive number, we all know that we Jews make up a tiny…
Another school shooting, this time in Michigan. Too many murders in cities and towns across our country. So much violence undermining the sanctity of life. The sanctity of…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmBibh16vUQ&t=4s As events at home and abroad, including the court cases that are making headlines, the attack in Wisconsin and the murder of Eli Kay z”l in Jerusalem,…
Father Charles Coughlin, a Canadian Catholic priest who worked at a church in Michigan, was a virulent anti-Semite who, throughout the 1930s, was one of the most powerful…
A glimpse of the damage of KristallnachtUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons The words of Sofoni Herz, an educator at the Jewish orphanage in Dinslaken, Germany, written on…