יום חמישי, כ״ה חשוון תשפ״זThursday, November 5, 2026
Follow Us
By Rayzel Reich
I didn’t need that much garlic. After all… how much garlic, exactly, could I put into the chicken without overdoing it? But something made me leave the white, rounded head on the counter after cracking off a few bulbs, rather than putting it back in the fridge. Maybe I’d need more.
By Ron Ansel
One of the best aspects of the frum community is our dedication to chesed. From a myriad of organizations to shul committees to neighbors doing whatever they can do to help those in need, chesed is one of the main pillars of our community.
By dvora
Single-minded and dutifully on a mission, Leah Shmist is sitting at her mother’s kitchen table in Ashdod, sorting through a box of papers. Her father, Dr. Aharon Arkady Shmist, was among the first Jewish lay leaders in Ukraine who began to rebuild the Jewish community as soon as Mikhail Gorbachev initiated Perestroika and Glasnost in the mid 1980’s – allowing for greater freedom to religious groups. Much has been written about Shmist, documenting his work as a Jewish lay leader, and now his daughter Leah says she wants to complete the last project he was in the middle of before his untimely death.
“I’m no heroine. I only did what any moral person would do,” Irena Sendler protested with understated modesty. “I simply tried to help the people in need.”
Not too many Jewish World War II survivors from Germany can say that they had the distinction of being both interned in a concentration camp and liberating the captives in that same camp. Erwin Weinberg did just that.
By Dr. Sheri Rosenfeld-Grunseid and Lisa Rosenfeld
The date May 4th, 1945 will forever be etched in their memories, and now it will be forever etched in ours. That fateful day toward the end of World War II was the day that American soldiers liberated Gunskirchen Lager, a subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
Dear Dr. Yael: I am trying, over the Internet, to find programs for my son that are geared toward helping people strengthen their emunah and bitachon. Thus far, I have been unsuccessful. Do you know of any sites I can visit? Anonymous
By dvora
On Sunday evening, April 7, the Yeshiva Aharon Yaakov Ohr Eliyahu was joined by parents, grandparents, and children for a communitywide commemoration honoring the six million kedoshim of the Shoah.
On my third visit to the annual New York Botanical Garden Orchid Show, I did not take any pictures.
Choosing Life in Israel evinces what it means to be emotionally, spiritually, and viscerally drawn, as a Jew, to the siren song emitted by Israel.
By Tzvi Fishman
The next chapter of the award-winning novel.
Pesach is over. The busy swirl of Jewish holidays will end with Shavuot next month. The slow pace of summer days will follow. Schools and organizations will shut down. Synagogues will stop many of their activities. Their front office is often shuttered. The facility will only open for prayer services. Organizations are closed for vacation. They will reopen in the fall.
The Miami Country Day School chapter of the Jewish Student Connection recently hosted a Lunch and Learn with guest speaker Irene Waller, a noted educator who has taught in locations as diverse as Canada and Japan.
A small shoe a rusted silver bell a worn blanket a sign of the glory it once had The First Stage of Life
I can feel the fear pulsing through my veins, blocking out everything around me. I walk down the long, unembellished hall, which is dimly lit with fiery torches at every bend. I can’t help but wonder if it was purposely built this way to terrorize me. As I slowly edge towards the doors, I keep telling myself it’s going to be fine…but what if it’s not? I can feel my stomach twisting as I turn the last corner and come to a complete stop.
By Pnina Baim
Last month, I discussed our tumuloutous family trip to Israel and the many mistakes and some smart moves we made along the way. Hopefully you can learn from our mistakes and incorporate the lessons we learned in your own family trips.
About four years ago a group of orthodox senior citizens from Bnei Brak arrived to tour the Ayalon Institute. One woman seemed to be exceptionally moved and cried a lot. Nearly two week later, she sent a letter to the Institute explaining why. She wrote that she was a Holocaust survivor and between 1943 and 1945 she had been a forced laborer making bullets to help the Nazi cause – bullets that were used many times against Jews. After the war, she had concentrated on raising a frum generation, suppressing all the terror of those horrendous years in order to do so.
Two masters of modern photography are on view at the International Center of Photography; Chim (Szymin) aka David Seymour and Roman Vishniac. They are both Jewish and just happen to bring astute but radically different visions to Jewish photographic subjects. These brilliant, exhaustive exhibitions help us examine the fundamentals of what it means to create a Jewish Art in photography.
Welcome back to “You’re Asking Me?” where we delve into questions sent in by readers. We might as well. It’s not like we can listen to music.
Chabad of South Broward is known in South Florida as a leader in Jewish education, outreach and social services. The organization, founded in 1980, is home to over forty institutions and agencies and has twelve Chabad centers in Broward County.
Emunah of America held its South Florida Annual Gala Dinner on Tuesday, February 26, at the elegant Miami Beach Resort and Spa on Collins Avenue.
Young Israel of Bal Harbour, Bay Harbor and Surfside, held a long-anticipated event on Sunday, March 10. Many years of struggle finally culminated in a jubilant groundbreaking ceremony held at the congregation’s construction site in Surfside. Several hundred people attended the gathering.
The Lubavitch Educational Center in Miami recently packed the social hall of the Shul of Bal Harbour for the largest father/son farbrengen South Florida has ever seen.
RASG Hebrew Academy, located at 2400 Pine Tree Drive in Miami Beach, will hold a memorial for fallen IDF soldiers on Monday, April 15, at 6:30 p.m. The service will be led by students and take place in the school auditorium.
Several years ago, during the height of the balanced literacy controversy in New York City, I wrote about the different approaches to reading. With some more years of research and hands-on experience, I would like to revisit this integral topic: How do children learn to read?
The price of deliberate obliviousness is very high - emotionally, physically, socially, and financially.
He needs to have a different ring for his work number in order to be able to ignore all other incoming calls and message alerts. This will give him the opportunity to only speak on the phone or retrieve texts when it is absolutely necessary to do so.
By Irwin Cohen
Let me tell you about my new book. Like you, I’m interested in Jewish baseball players and Jewish history. So, after years of research, first-hand observations and interviews, I combined the aforementioned information from the post-civil war era to the present and came up with a book titled Jewish History in the Time of Baseball's Jews: Life on Both Sides of the Ocean.
By Tzvi Fishman
The next chapter of the award-winning novel.
“I have a room,” she said. “Saturday I will move in. My church is paying for it. I’m here today and tomorrow, hopefully that will give me enough to get an air mattress, and then I will never do this again.” I wished her luck, and I walked away, feeling moved by the interdependence all humans have on each other, and with a deeper understanding of just how much we get when we give.
No, the above title is not a misprint of the ubiquitous, “If you see something, say something” campaign encouraging citizens to report suspicious packages and behavior to the police. In these ads, often found in public places and synagogues, one sees a photo of a passenger with an unattended package nearby.
By Sandy Eller
I know this is supposed to be a consumer column, but let's face it. We have all just spent the last few weeks preparing, cleaning and shopping until our credit cards begged for mercy and our family members have started wondering if Windex is our new signature scent. The last thing anyone wants to be thinking about right now is buying more stuff, making home improvements or otherwise planning ahead.
“My name is Itzhak Hazan. I was raised in a traditional Jewish family in France. I initially came to Israel in 1977 as a lone backpacker and felt an immediate attachment to the people and country. I realized that there was a difference between the French culture in which I was raised and Jewish culture.
Each year International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8. Thousands of events occur, not only on this day but also throughout March to mark the social, economic and political accomplishments of women.
“Mommy, can you read me the book, again?” Shmuel asked his mother, holding up The Little Engine That Could. “Of course, Shmuel. Let’s do that,” Chevy smiled. She was tired from a long day, but with her four kids huddled around, she was happy to sit and read in the living room. “Chug, chug, chug. Puff, puff, puff. Ding-dong, ding-dong. The little train rumbled over the track,” Chevy began.
By dvora
.The preceding two columns familiarized readers with the “mechanism” that drives the world of shidduchim in Chassidish mode. In her engagingly candid and perky style, R.B. has obliged us with articulate and to-the-point responses. This column concludes the series, which will have hopefully lent both the aspiring and seasoned shadchan some valuable insight and guidance.
Published originally in 1965, this reissue of a classic is now more relevant than ever. Jewish law legislates that a child is Jewish if the mother is Jewish, or one who had converted to Judaism according to specific halachic requirements. Jewish identity is thus not merely sociological and demographic (if Jews live in the land of Israel) nor ethnic (differences in customs, folkways, and liturgy and practice of Ashkenazi Jews vs. Sephardic Jews), but rather determined by a maternal hereditary religious blood covenant.
Last month we sketched the life of Reverend Dr. Sabato Morais and discussed his spiritual leadership of Congregation Mikveh Israel in Philadelphia as well as his involvement in a wide range of communal activities. Here we outline some of his many other accomplishments and describe his huge funeral.
A recent study from the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine found that people with intellectual and other developmental disabilities are more prone to dental disease than the general population and that further research is required to identify effective interventions.
By dvora
Between 1997 and 2008, the number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) increased almost fourfold, according to the National Health Interview survey. The 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health indicated that 1.1 percent of all children born in this country are on the autism spectrum.
By Mori Sokal
We are born to learn, in whatever capacity we are able. We study the world with our senses, and try to understand it. Our special children have more of a challenge, but they are just as interested in knowing what is going on around them. We know that because we observe their keen interest in everything we do and say. We need to nurture this interest, to encourage it.
The American Inclusion Movement’s First Wave, which was focused solely on Inclusion in the workforce, has been almost entirely forgotten. It occurred in the 1930’s, decades before the 1960’s zeitgeist brought about broader and more famous changes in pro-disability policy, architectural barriers, and independent living.
By Tzvi Fishman
The next chapter of the award-winning novel.
By Sara Ben-Zvi
He is anyone at all who just simply does not know how to ask, whether scared, uneducated, or yes, young. He represents the people who simply do not know enough yet to ask the serious questions of the chacham.
By Erica Lyons
It started as my daughter’s third grade assignment: choose a person to write about, preferably an American, preferably a Jew. We were going to do just that. I intended to help my daughter choose the topic and then to back away yet, Emma Lazarus ended up drawing me in.
There is a special class of Jewish artists who toil in the rich fields of Tanach and Jewish practice for years and years, quietly establishing a foundation of visual and intellectual markers for generation of artists to come. Ruth Weisberg is clearly one of these founders. Her seminal work articulates an approach to the Jewish narrative deeply informed by a Jewish feminism.
How is it possible that a person of seemingly normal intelligence (nowhere does it say he is simple) not have the ability to ask a question - to not react and enquire as to the why of the hustle and bustle around him?
To this day, all the returned items remain in my parent's possession. Baruch Hashem, this was the beginning of a very close and wonderful relationship between my parents and these machatanim - on that continues until today.
Today, more children than ever are diagnosed with ADHD and the disorder is widely researched and accommodated in schools. However, a lot of children do not necessarily understand ADHD – whether they or their friend is the one suffering from the disorder. To that end, I wrote a children’s book about ADHD, My Friend, The Troublemaker, to help children better comprehend what is going on in the classroom with themselves or their classmates.
We recognize that the Exodus story in the Torah, like all biblical narratives, is more than just a historical or political tale of physical bondage and ensuing liberation, it is also a spiritual and psychological drama. The exodus represents the human potential to liberate itself from slavery -- be it physical, mental, or spiritual.
By Tzvi Fishman
One late afternoon when Tevye returned to his tent after a back-breaking day in the winery, a letter was waiting from Baylke. Sure enough, she had been in touch with Golda’s distant cousin in Chicago, and he had forwarded Tevye’s letter to her in New York. She had been thrilled […]
By Yoni Glatt
Let’s face it, the words “cool” and “Gemara” don’t really go hand in hand. In fact, they probably aren’t meant to. But like it or not the new and improved ArtScroll app has made Gemara as cool as can be, thanks to the tech wizards at RustyBrick.
The present kingdom of Persia, which recently officially took the name “Iran,” encompasses a region of over 1,640,000 square kilometers with about 15 million inhabitants. The most important cities are the capital Tehran as well Tabris, Mesched, and Isfahan (the former capital).
Museum Village, a replica of a typical American village during the 1800’s, was the vision of Roscoe William Smith. Mr. Smith was an electrical engineer, entrepreneur, philanthropist and collector who contributed in many ways to his native Orange County. He made his fortune in 1905 as founder of the Orange and Rockland electric company.
By Donyel Meese
One of my favorite movies to watch growing up was Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. On a whim, I decided to watch it this past weekend, taking a break from intensive LSAT studying. Julia Roberts plays a woman who works at her family's small-town hardware store. She has earned a notorious reputation for ditching her fiancée on her wedding day.
By Tamar Warga
Preparing for an ordinary Pesach is daunting enough with all of the cleaning, shopping, cooking, and preparation, but add food allergies to the mix and you could literally “go nuts.” Don’t go nuts, go nut-free and egg-free too. While Pesach poses dietary challenges, they are not insurmountable.
By Rayzel Reich
I stare, and I stare, trying to connect to those deep, seeing, eyes, to the wisdom and depth within that face. And all I can think, murmurs sliding in a circle through my mind - is, hadras panim... hadras panim... hadras panim...
While I certainly don’t speak for all infertile couples, I feel a brief introduction to some of the challenges that couples face would be worthwhile before I describe our treatment protocols.
By Marc Gottlieb / CulinartKosher.com
Mayonnaise. That's right, you read it correctly. And I'm sure it's not the first time you've read it, either. And the thought of it has probably made you go '"blech." But this is me saying it, so let's break it down logically, and you'll see that the idea isn't as far-fetched as you might think. […]
The Prophet Yeshayahu’s messages of Geula/ Redemption are apt answers to our present-day prayers. They are tailor made for our times. He exhorts the people of Israel to abandon their self-image as aniya soara -- a poor tempest-tossed woman ( 54:11) -- and rise as bat Tziyon -- the daughter of Zion, a nation with a sense of pride and dignity.
Just like Aharon HaKohen promoted shalom bayis by sharing with couples all of the good things that his or her spouse said, a therapist can encourage shalom bayis in this same way.
Winter is here and with it comes a whole host of viruses that are somehow less prevalent in the warmer seasons. Poor winter, it’s saddled with the nickname of “cold and flu season.”
By Anna Harwood
An interview with Professor Michael Aviram from Rambam Hospital and the Technion Israel Institute of Technology in Israel.
Having a baby today is all about making decisions. Which doctor to go to. Which hospital to deliver at. What are your health concerns. Do you want to go natural. Do you want convenience. Where is your insurance accepted. Which hospital has the best reputation. Etc., etc., etc.
The news abounds with frightening and catastrophic events from which it is increasingly hard to insulate our children. Should we continue to try to protect our children from an awareness of such misfortune? If we have to resign ourselves to their finding out, how do we help them process such information without causing undue distress and worry?
By dvora
By 2015, 46 million Americans will be over the age of 65. As members of the baby boomer generation pass the traditional retirement age, our standards for aging are steadily changing.
I often write about Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) because it is a pervasive and problematic issue in our community today. Recent surveys suggest that ODD affects between two and sixteen percent of children. Children with ODD are often classified as “explosive” because of their severe and sudden outbreaks.
There are millions of adults today who experienced the trauma of their parents’ divorce 20, 30, 40 or more years ago. Some have found closure, but many more have not. Regrettably, it is a time in a child’s life that is never forgotten. It stays with you; it is part of who you are.
By dvora
.Though ultimately we know that Hashem is in charge of pairing zivugim, He entrusts His earthly messengers with the task of setting things in motion. While many of us lay-shadchanim can count our triumphant outcomes in the single digits (some of us having woefully nary a one to our credit), a vivacious and immensely popular chassidishe woman keeps racking them up — seemingly effortlessly, with bubbling enthusiasm.
The Ronald and Ethel Gruen Endowed Fund for the Advancement of Secondary Jewish Education has awarded $20,000 to YULA Boys High School. As one of eight grant recipients, the funds are intended to either provide need-based scholarships to students or to support the school’s mechinah (beginners) programs. The gift will be administered through Yeshiva University’s Institute for University-School Partnership.
You’ll never get anything you need or want if you don’t ask. You have to ask the questions. Treasure this advice, because it’s one of the best you’ll get in life. At times it’s thorny and complicated to ask another for something – what if he says no and your request is rebuffed. Rejection is hard to take. And what if you’re imposing or the requestee has a hard time saying no? But you’ll also never get a “yes” without first asking.
JERUSALEM – Since he was a kid growing up in the town of Kiryat Tivan, Roy Itzhaki would regularly see them in the street, on their way to work, in coffee houses, as free as anyone else in the village to live their lives.
By Tzvi Fishman
The next chapter of the award-winning novel.
By dvora
With our focus now turned to the upcoming Pesach holiday, I wanted to share with you some lighter and healthier meal ideas. We have some baked, not fried eggplant, low-carb “rice” created in a unique way, a nice salad and a refreshingly light dessert. I hope this will enhance your Pesach and bring you many nice compliments.
We will start our tour at Agripas No. 12, exactly where the first round stone pot-plant of pansies stands, on the same side of Binyan Klal, but walking towards King George Street and opposite the traffic circle. Entering HaRav Chaim Elboher Alley, we find ourselves in Even Yisrael.
By Pnina Baim
I’m very passionate about Israel and it’s always been my desire to share that passion with my children. It was a sad day in our home when we missed out on the great deal to Israel earlier this year, but thankfully, my husband managed to snag an almost as good one a couple of months later.
A Documentary Produced and Edited by Avi Angel Based on “Three Mothers for Two Brothers” by Izhak Weinberg 54 minutes: Quad Cinema March 1 – 7; soon on Amazon and iTunes What is your earliest memory? Itzik Weinberg’s earliest memory may be of him and his younger brother, Avner, fleeing the invading Germans in Cracow, […]
It might still be two weeks to Pesach, but is never too early to start thinking about Afikomen presents.
Prepare for something that will change the lively atmosphere of Coney Island forever. Casinos may be coming to your neighborhood! This must be stopped!
It was one of those cold, rain-soaked evenings - the kind that make you look forward to a hot drink, a good book and a soft couch to curl up on. With those happy thoughts in mind, I proceeded to cross to the other side of the street.
Dear Dr. Yael: I recently concluded that I don’t believe in G-d. One day, while davening with kavanah for yiras Shamayim, I found material flaws in my reasons for believing in G-d and Judaism. I have felt this way for pretty much my whole life, with much introspection and debate. Finally, in one instant, my entire belief system fell away.
Four-year-old Naomi stayed in the block corner every day during playtime, building an intricate tower. She rarely spoke except when spoken to during circle time. In the yard, Naomi enjoyed swinging calmly and watching the other children jump rope or kick the ball.
It’s inevitable that sometimes couples will step on each other’s toes; especially during the first year of marriage, where newlyweds find themselves tip-toeing around their spouse’s emotional roadblocks. Don’t forget that it takes time to learn about your spouse’s idiosyncrasies and how to respond in a way that makes him or her feel at ease.
Last week a shocking incident occurred in Central Florida. Jeffrey Bush, a 36-year old resident of Tampa, was asleep in his family home. Suddenly, a 20-foot-sinkhole opened up under him. Bush awoke. He screamed for help as he, his bed and the furnishings of the room were swallowed up.
A uniquely cooperative event took place on March 6 when the Young Israel of Deerfield Beach hosted a nationally televised siyum on Masechas Shabbos that was presented by the Agudath Israel of America.
October 30, 2026 
