Bat Aliyah

Over Shabbat, I heard this story. It seems that, a few years ago, parents in a religious community in North America (not Baltimore, althoug...

Bumping into people we know from America while strolling around Jerusalem is kind of a common event around here, so it's no big surprise...

We just arrived in Israel yesterday morning, after 24-hours of relatively stress-free travel, thank Gd. On the plane, I realized that I was...

Tamar Weissman and Chanina Rosenbaum from Baltimore made this film as a gift to Noah and Risa Lasson, who are making aliyah next week. It...

Last week, I had a lengthy interview in a very, very non-Jewish environment. The position for which I was interviewing is an excellent one,...

The Baltimore Chug Aliyah and the Israel Aliyah center sponsored a talk by Yishai Fleisher in Baltimore last night. It's a shame you w...

This week, we read Numbers 19:1-22:1, known as Parshat Chukat . Torah portions almost always take their names from the first important wor...

For quite a long time now, I have had the great privilege of working for the Jewish community. Officially. With a business card, a name ta...

I know I haven't written in more than a month, but that doesn't mean that I am not thinking Israel thoughts all the time. For now, ...

JTA recently published an article about opposition to the prayer for the State of Israel among certain Jews in the United States. Althoug...

Bibliotherapy. It describes something I have been doing intuitively most of my adult life. In the psychotherapeutic literature, biblioth...

Without a doubt, the opening of Hillel to non-Jews is one of the saddest commentaries on Jewish life in America. Hillel: The Foundation fo...

Months, years even, of thousands of rockets fired into Sderot. I visit to see what it’s like to live with that strain on a regular basis. ...

When we were in Israel this past visit, we went to visit Beit El , a religious settlement north of Jerusalem. Beit El also happens to be t...

My new pet project: promoting English language books that teach about the relationship between aliyah and bringing geula. I...

While shopping for food for Shabbat at the mall in Ma’ale Adumim last week, I saw an unmistakable cross-shaped tattoo on the forehead of an ...

DATELINE: Ma’ale Adumim When Yosef was languishing in prison in Egypt, he began to interpret dreams. In the process of interpreting a d...

One of my favorite things to do in Israel is to listen to tales of people’s Jewish journeys. So many people with amazing Jewish stories en...

About five years ago, I stumbled upon a new avenue of Jewish information that blew me away. It’s called Facilitated Communication and, at...

Here’s how it feels to be me. There’s an underlying disquiet that never really leaves me. I am, at all times, waiting for the other ...

In my last post, I inadvertently left out an important aspect of the process. There is a back door to avoiding, or at least diminishing, the...

Is the decision of whether to live in Jersey or Jerusalem, Baltimore or Beit Shemesh, Monsey or Modi’in one of personal choice? After all,...

I'm a little behind in my reading of The International Jerusalem Post . So it's an interesting confluence that today, after I just ...

Motzei Shabbos, we were driving around running errands while I talked to my endlessly patient husband about how, as observant American Jews,...

This past Friday night, we had wonderful Shabbos guests – smart, committed, articulate Jewish friends who appear to welcome engaging in disc...

I know it sounds like I'm ranting sometimes. My new rabbinic hero, Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov, says, "I am well aware that he who touches...

First published in 1957, nearly a decade after the creation of the modern State of Israel , Ish U’Beiso , officially translated as The Jew a...

Last night, I went to a Tehillim rally much like the one held here in August of 2006. This time, the rally was billed as a Community Wide ...

Last night, I stayed up until 5:00 AM learning a commentary on the teachings of HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook . Okay, some of it w...

There are lots of people, I suppose, who are living one way in their heads while their bodies are in another place altogether. Those with ...

So now we’ve been back from Israel for two weeks. Everyone asks, “How was it?” or “Did you have a nice time?” I haven’t a clue how ...

Every time I refer to Jewish observance in America as ersatz, someone takes issue with it. So let me explain further. I don’t mean to...

Many years ago, fresh out of graduate school, I was offered a job at an historically black university . Working at an historically black i...

Yesterday, I had an experience that made me feel like I am actually living in Israel. Our daughter and her friend traveled with us from ...

We are 12 days into a three-week visit to the Holy Land. Each time we come, I tend to notice a theme in the messages that make their way i...

There’s a certain corner in Jerusalem that startles me every time we drive by. At that corner, there are always Arab women, walking with t...