יום רביעי, כ״ד חשוון תשפ״זWednesday, November 4, 2026
Follow Us
By JJ Eleff
One of the things I love about the DansDeals forums is the diversity in our members – people coming together from all different walks of life. We frequently discuss our differences and educate each other on the beauty of our own traditions and customs.
By The Honorable Rachel Freier
Knowing that my children and grandchildren create another link in the chain makes tradition not just a word in my family but a way of life.
Adherence to traditions will fade away if there is no understanding of why we do what we do.
By Anat Coleman
At the height of the pandemic, for example, New Yorkers came together in a new tradition of making noise at 7 p.m. each evening in support of our essential workers.
If what you say is a received tradition we accept it. (But) if you have derived it logically then we have a response.
A cache of documents I acquired this week tells of the efforts of a group that during World War II founded the organization Sabbath Observers in Civil Service to defend and support those in the U.S. Military who were Sabbath observant.
The great visionary of the Jewish State did not bother to provide his children with even the rudiments of Jewish education or a Jewish identity; in fact, he taught them that assimilation, liberalism, and an enlightened education would finally bring an end to antisemitism and Jewish isolation.
By Marc Gronich
From one of my favorite TV shows I learned that you have to go to visit the rabbi three times to show you’re serious.
Maybe the most important lesson I learned during those years was from a rebbe who remarked that the most essential character trait developed in yeshiva by a ben Torah is curiosity.
While there is something to be said for being an eclectic learner, who in many ways pieced together my own derech, I deeply wish that I had started learning seriously earlier in my life, and that I had a derech in learning, particularly when it comes to Gemara.
By Rachel Kohn
With its derivation from the Hebrew word "to sit," yeshiva can be seen to connote continuity through hunkering down...
If next year’s tuition contract has given you sticker shock, remember that the challenge to afford tuition is nothing new.
This video highlighted something else. It was like an old couple, with decades of carpools and those daily pedestrian responsibilities of families, reading their first love letters. This video reminded us of that first love.
Schwartz spent the coming years traversing the country, studying the history of its villages and towns and attempting to determine the locations of biblical sites.
The catacombs also include beautiful illustrations of animals, which include birds, peacocks, ducks, and eagles; bulls, sheep and rams; and hens and roosters; as well as flowers and fruit trees, many of which may symbolize paradise.
Would that we could sweat out impatience, addictions, anger, and our many other self-destructive behaviors that leave us worse off, closed off, and far off the mark!
By Maayan Zik
One of the most important schvitz-making projects of our lives is the journey to be more of ourselves.
Language academics created an entire discipline – phonoaesthetics – to figure out what makes a word pleasant-sounding. Idyllic appears on that list, and so does mellifluous and cellar door. Shvitz doesn’t.
Yiddish – and by extension, modern Hebrew – offers us yet another use for this term – the 'shvitzer,' or braggart, someone who's trying too hard and constantly showing off.
Hashem views the past, present, and future in synchronization. We too must broaden our scope.
These books constituted a complete collection of texts necessary for everyday Jewish life, something that had existed among the Western Sephardim and Ashkenazim for over 200 years.
Notably – and not surprising in Nazi Germany – the reviewer praised Mitchell’s description of the patriarchal character and racial and social hierarchy in the antebellum South.
By Avi Ganz
The Gemara (Kiddushin 30b) says, I have created the yetzer hara and I have created the Torah for it as a spice. A spice? Not a defense, an antidote or a vaccine?
By Eli Lebowicz
When Sodom is destroyed, Lot’s wife looks back at the city because the angels said not to, and she gets turned into a pillar of salt.
If you describe someone as salty? It’s someone who is not in the best of moods. A sailor with salty language is not speaking eloquently; a salty person is one who is upset over minor nuisances.
Something that is salty in terms of cooking means it’s not seasoned properly, but too much salt or being salty could also be applied to balance as well.
Lot’s wife was indeed warned not to look back, a warning she ignored. But when she did, she saw the city she loved, and which she missed dearly, in a state of utter desolation.
Judaism is not just a religion, but a relationship. Our challenges are tailor-made to build character. When passing our tests, we grow and gain self-respect.
Shem-Tov ibn Falaquera was a great Jewish Spanish philosopher and author, best known for his strong defense of the Rambam in a period when Maimonides was still under continuous attack by the opponents of the study of philosophy.
I present here the official cards of the first seven Congresses accompanied by a brief description of the Congress highlights.
As reflections of the image of Hashem we must maintain our healthy bodies, selves and souls.
Health is like anything else: the set of circumstances within which we operate.
I was powerless to influence his health in any measurable way, save for fervent davening. Yet is that not what is implied when we utter gezunt in well wishes?
When we allow extremes to become norms, the community is not healthy. When we place one value over all others, the community is not healthy.
Its impact is far-reaching and beyond all proportion to its quantity.
Although well-made, with little red paste stones and a carnelian in the center, all in a tightly spun silver filigree setting, the way the Hebrew letters of “Bezalel” are formed and that the mark is rather lightly struck is not how a proper Bezalel hallmark appears.
The haskamot note that this is the first work in Ladino geared to women, despite the era being the height of the Ladino printing period, with numerous rabbinic as well as fictional works being published.
By Baruch Lytle
Josh and Caleb said they believe their invention is important because in many different sports including football and hockey, many players end up having some sort of brain damage after they end their careers...
Harding’s Zionism may be rooted in his Baptist faith and his knowledge of the Bible and, over and above his support for a Jewish homeland in Eretz Yisrael, he often expressed positive sentiments about the Jewish faith.
Shavuos is our wedding day, when we recommit ourselves to our relationship with Hashem. We don’t just look at our photo album and videos from the wedding, we re-experience it.
Rephrasing the Gemara into the current vernacular: Good things come to those who wait.
It’s the perfect time to remember that Hashem entrusted each of us with a special mission in this world.
At the very climax of our exodus from Egypt and, arguably, the most crucial moment in our nation’s birth, we were told to keep our distance and sit tight.
As we are about to celebrate the holiday of Shavuot, we treasure that gift from the Almighty.
An Italian Jewish physician and a great scholar, dei Rossi used critical methods to analyze the Aggadah of the Talmud, not understanding the literal meaning of the text.
The Rebbe always emphasized that the Land of Israel is the heart of the world and the channel through which all Divine blessings flow.
Where I grew up in Queens, N.Y., we were a little more lenient. We never cut off our peyos, but we also were allowed to cut them below the bone.
What are they really about? To make us look respectable (Bechor Shor)? Separate us from paganism (Ralbag)?
I did notice that the Hebrew word for wig is a peya, so I’m naturally going to think of a connection there.
By Keshet Starr
As frum Jews, we’re called to be different, to surpass the physical elements of life with deeper spiritual pursuits. This is, indeed, a responsibility – we feel its burden for a reason.
By Hillel Fuld
What does it mean to maintain your identity as a Jew? The answer is that the Israelites kept their names, language, and clothing.
By Eve Glover
In the 11 years since Tamimi has been freed, Roth feels completely abandoned and betrayed.
Poitier clearly stated in the interview that the waiter who helped him was Jewish. A national Kiddush Hashem was made that day.
Written from a Muslim perspective, it was published by the Supreme Moslem Council (with the notorious Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, at its helm), and it acknowledges and emphasizes the Jewish history of the Temple Mount.
A century of Jewish children have grown up picturing Abraham as depicted by this beloved and monumental work without ever knowing the identity of the artist.
Neither Noga nor her husband come from religious families, but tradition is tradition and cause for celebration is cause for celebration.
We are encouraged to perform hiddur mitzvah, putting aside the cost, to some extent, to glorify serving Hashem.
In the Torah each person is obligated to use their money to pursue justice. The common meaning of the word tzedaka is charity, but a more true definition is justice.
By Chaim Saiman
Almost everyone “believes in” money, and even the “monetary atheists” who dream of returning to the gold-standard usually lead their lives as if money really exists.
When we talk about problematic influences from the world around us, we are likely to think about matters of ideology, entertainment and mass culture, or dress.
Our approach to money should be understanding that our financial status is determined by G-d.
While little of it remains today, Maine's larger cities as well as many nearby towns had thriving Orthodox Jewish Communities in the early 20th century.
Rabbi Blau's decades-long campaign for the modesty of Jewish woman evokes comparisons to the Taliban and the Mullahs in Iran, as he established dress codes and “modesty patrols” to brutally enforce them, beginning in charedi communities and later expanding into other neighborhoods.
I’m used to playing Division III basketball at the end of the day, Turell said. It took me a game to get used to the speed and used to the size. After that, I felt very used to it and ready to go.
In 1617, French nobleman Concino Concini, Marquis d'Ancre, and his wife Leonora Galigai (who were not Jewish) were brought to trial for political reasons and accused of witchcraft and "Judaizing," and were subsequently killed.
his is not the standard look for someone who attends our shul even if just passing through, especially since there are other shuls on the block that may be considered a better fit. I'll be honest that if someone comes in looking like this, it's usually to collect tzedakah.
The Potter books, which have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide and have become the best-selling book series in history, have been translated into at least 80 languages, including Hebrew.
What a glorious sight it is to see Jewish boys raised in this land...
Rubinstein’s success was such that she was able to bring two of her sisters to Australia to run the salons while she spent a year in Europe, where she studied with various experts about skin treatments, facial surgery, and good dietary practices.
By Jeremy Wayne
When Elisabeth de Waal, née Ephrussi, returned to the Ephrussi palace, her childhood home, in December 1945, she was in for a surprise. That her former world, the palace itself, the art and the treasures, were all gone, she already knew.
Laurel and Hardy got their start in film working with a variety of Jewish slapstick comedians and, prior to emerging as a team, both had well-established movie careers.
In that moment we were so awestruck and appreciative that worrying about what was coming was not in our schema.
For this column, I thought I would share some interesting items relating to Pesach that are in a local museum or from my personal collection.
This volume records the milestones of the life of a German Jew who left his family and homeland in 1853 to try his luck in the New World.
As Passover approached in 1858, tens of thousands of Jews lived in Manhattan, comprising about three percent of the population, and there were thousands of poor Jews needing kosher staples for the holiday – not the least of which, of course, was matzah.
By Eve Glover
Forty-five charedi students graduated last year, 60 percent of whom went into the IDF, mostly in the Computer and IT Directorate, and the other 40 percent in the Air Force.
It was from Matnat Chaim that Rabbi Libi learned that kidney transplants are reasonably safe procedures. Potential donors are screened carefully to check that their kidneys are healthy.
What is unusual in this order of prayer is that the Empress Maria Theresa is recalled as one of the most antisemitic and hostile rulers in modern Jewish history.
The question of the extent to which Mendelssohn identified with Judaism is still passionately debated, as authorities continue to argue about his self-identification as a Jew, as a Christian convert, or both.
Through giving, we connect to others, but we also connect to Hashem by imitating Him. This imitation creates similarity, and similarity leads to connection.
During the initial year-and-a-half of its existence, the Vaad concentrated its efforts on assisting the over 2,600 Polish rabbis and yeshivah students who had escaped to Lithuania, and trying to arrange their emigration overseas.
Ben Gurion used the broad public demand in Israel for a retaliatory action against Egypt to launch a February 28, 1955, attack on Gaza in which 39 Egyptians were killed and Israel suffered no casualties.
This manuscript of approximately 450 pages is dated 1891. It contains 32 chapters, written under the pseudonym Yeshay Ben Amotz, perhaps a play on his last name Schaikewitz.
Dear Tsadik, I have two candlesticks given to us by an aunt years ago that she claimed belonged to her parents, pre-Holocaust. Can you tell me anything about them? Thank you. Harold Furst Boca Raton, FL Dear Harold, I normally do not appraise objects that are secular in nature that have been adapted for […]
October 30, 2026 
