Partner Blogs
A Spiritual Approach to Jewish Education
“Who is the self that teaches?” asks the Quaker educator Parker J.Palmer in his book, The Courage to Teach: Exploring the ...
Poem as a Noisy Mediterranean Duplex
About a decade ago I read a Billy Collins poem called “Advice to Writers,” where this former U.S. Poet Laureate ...
Judgment Day: See you in “Bell”
Passing a billboard saying, “Return of Christ May 21st, 2011” in Los Angeles is very different than passing a billboard ...
Dream Big
Happy New Year Everyone! I have spent a good part of the weekend reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. ...
The Ultimate Jewish Staycation
For the first time in years, my husband and I have chosen to take a staycation. Our parents and siblings ...
From Scratch
One of my pet peeves is the veritable deluge of prepared foods and “meal assembly” emporia that has overtaken America ...
Getting Our B’nei Mitzvah to Understand (and Love) Torah Study
Helping 13-year-olds understand a 3,000-year-old text is challenging, to say the least.After all, trying to glean lessons from the Torah ...
Sweet and Sour
In my grandparents’ homes, as in the shtetlach from whence they came, the food was sweet and sour – just ...
What ‘All-American Muslim’ can teach our Jewish teens
Working with Jewish teenagers, I’ve seen it demonstrated that one very effective way to get them thinking deeply about their ...
Will the Real Chanukah Hero Please Stand Up?
As the eight days of Chanukah wind down, I am thinking of a question I posed as the festival began ...
What Is a “Jewish Bakery”?
Not too long ago, during a radio interview centered on Inside the Jewish Bakery , the host asked me, “What ...
Adventures in the Cartoon Trade: Israel, US, and Everywhere Else
When I walked down the airplane gangplank for the first time in Ben Gurion airport, I immediately noticed the baggage handlers ...
The Message of Chanukah
Hanukkah has been for as long as I can remember one of my favorite Jewish holidays. Throughout my life different ...
Kick Out the Holiday Jams
Hanukkah started last night, and one candlelighting, one family Hanukkah party, and one early-morning Hallel later, I’m channeling the spirit ...
Too Many Latkes!: Twenty Years in the Making
The idea for Too Many Latkes! came from one of my fondest childhood memories. My mother was the office manager ...