Holidays

Food

Pretty Cheesy

Shavuot calls for all the dairy dishes you can think of

By:

Louise Fiszer, JE Feature

Shavuot is one of those holidays that is known by many names and has something for everyone. It is called Pentecost and the Feast of Weeks because it falls on the 50th day after the second night of Passover. It is also called Hag Ha-bikurim , the "Feast of the First Fruits." Insomniacs can stay up all night embracing the...

Lag B'Omer

Lag B'Omer: It's All About the Picnics, Bonfires and Mysticism

By:

Mark Mietkiewicz, JE Feature

How can one day remind us of Judaism's links to mysticism, be a time to mourn and a time to dance, and also be an Israeli pilgrimage that is reminiscent at times of Woodstock? Lag B'Omer is all of those things. The seven-week period between Passover and Shavuot is a time of semi-mourning, but on the 33rd day, Lag B'Omer...

Yom Hashoah

Yom Hashoah Marks Resistance, Survival

By:

Aaron Passman

Samuel Kassow, a professor of history at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., speaks a bit of everything. He's fluent in Yiddish, gets by in Polish, knows his way around Russian and Hebrew, and has a good reading command of German and French. But he won't need a translator when he speaks in Philadelphia this weekend; his message will be very...

Yom Hashoah

Yom Hashoah: A True Tale of Triumph, Divided Three Ways

By:

Melissa Jacobs, Jewish Exponent Feature

Yiddish flies around the kitchen as the three older women grapple with the temperature in the Northeast Philadelphia house in which they've gathered. These white-haired widows in their 80s have been friends for more than 30 years. Paula Spigler, Serena Zelmanovitch and Hannah Andrusier talk on the phone daily, attend Ohev Shalom synagogue in Richboro on Saturdays and squabble like...

Local

Philly Teachers Miffed Over Leave

By:

Aaron Passman

Some Jewish teachers in the Philadelphia School District are upset over the district's time-off policy as it pertains to Passover. The week of Monday, March 29 to Friday, April 2 was originally scheduled to be spring break, however Monday and Tuesday -- the start of Pesach -- were added back on the school calendar to partially make up for the...