There are birthday parties, and then there are birthday “productions.” Forty-seven year Teaneck resident David Zomick celebrated his 80th birthday with both. In a carefully coordinated and masterfully executed surprise, the family joined to make this a genuine dream-come-true birthday for

“I live in New York,” I said to myself. “It’s the easiest place in the world to keep kosher besides some cities in Israel.” Though I was just a high school student, and most of my family was not religious, I took it upon myself to keep kosher. Being Jewish—especially being Orthodox—is often about making an effort, even though

Anti-Zionism is merely today’s cloak for classical antisemitism.

One topic preoccupying pundits who write about Israel is whether anti-Zionism amounts to antisemitism.

Those who claim that the two are equivalent, such as New York Times columnist Bret Stephens,

Rabbi Sacks, zt’’l, had prepared a full year of Covenant & Conversation for 5781, based on his book ‘Lessons in Leadership.’

One of the gifts of great leaders, and one from which each of us can learn, is that they frame reality for the group. They define its situation. They specify

An Erev Yom Tov Call

It is a magnificent story about Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik recounted by my cousin Rav Aharon Adler in his new outstanding work “Seventy Conversations in Transit—with HaGaon HaRav Joseph B. Soloveitchik.” A Boston community member constructed an eruv in his

Parshat Re’eh

This week’s haftarah is familiar to us from both Parshat Ki Teitzei and Parshat Noach, and, as a result, I wondered whether I could find a new idea to share with you. But, as we learn in Pirkei Avot, “Hafoch bah v’hafoch bah d’kula bah,” if we review and revisit the text we

On Sukkah 25a, several late Amoraim deduce, from the Biblical term kapot, the precise contours of taking the lulav branch—that it isn’t the hardened lulav branch, the trunk, two palm branches, or one leaf. It might seem irregular for biblical interpretation to be performed by late Amoraim. However, they are expanding upon an existing

Aside from that common verb ראה, there are many other verbs for seeing or looking in Tanach. I am going to discuss three of them: הביט,שקף and שגח. (I will leave ציץ, שור, צופה and חזה for another column.)

הביט: The underlying verb here is נבט, just like the root of

To be a Jewish educator is to enable others to think, feel and act differently—today, tomorrow or sometime in the future—through an encounter with one of the world’s oldest and still-dynamic cultural traditions. The Jewish educator reaches both into the distant past and toward an unbounded future. To be an educator means,

Highlighting: “To Build and To Bond: Living Well in a Jewish Marriage,” by Rabbi Moshe Berliner, MSW. 2020. Paperback. 251 pages. ISBN-13: 979-8607014346

Rabbi Moshe Berliner, MSW, who resides in Har Nof, Jerusalem, with his family, published his valuable marriage

Imagine celebrating your 70th birthday with thousands of your nearest and dearest! Marking not only his milestone birthday but his 50 years of trailblazing leadership in the world of Yiddish music and culture, Zalmen Mlotek, longtime resident of Teaneck, produced an online celebration watched by thousands of fans over the course of

New calls to cut ties to Ben & Jerry’s would add to list of banned investments.

Earlier this year, state lawmakers received a lengthy report from New Jersey’s public-worker pension fund that exhaustively documented its ties to companies doing business in Northern Ireland. The