Torah and TikTok: Not Your Dad’s Bar Mitzvah
While their parents may have relied on tape recorders and CDs for their own b’nei mitzvah preparations, students today learning to chant Torah can...
Adventures in Lesser-Known Milestones: The Upsherin
If you’re keeping score on your Jewish milestone celebrations bingo card at home, there are a few squares you’ve probably filled a few times...
Jewish Death and Mourning Rituals in Philly Adjust to Epidemic
On March 18, Lisa Leff went to a shiva. She didn’t bring food, and she didn’t pin a kriyah ribbon to her clothing. She...
Jewish Ritual Life in Philly Adapts to Coronavirus
In crisis, one natural question is, “Where is God?”
When, as with the present global pandemic, public gatherings are off-limits, we’re ordered to stay at...
How Coronavirus has Impacted Jewish Ritual Practices
As the coronavirus spreads, communities are grappling with how best to approach daily living without a known vaccine.
And that includes Jewish communities.
Synagogues in all...
Locals Begin New Seven-Year Daf Yomi Cycle
Everywhere Dovid Flam looked in MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, he saw Jews
celebrating Torah learning.
More than 90,000 people came to the stadium Jan. 1...
A Second Chance to Make a First Bat Mitzvah
The phrase adult bar or bat mitzvah, if not an apparent contradiction in terms, reads with some incongruity. Why would you need a bar...
Independent Clergy Find Place in Community
It’s fairly typical for a rabbi to seek out a congregation to call home. But for some, a pulpit rabbinate isn’t for them.
Greater Philadelphia...
Why Hebrew School Students Choose Confirmation
Mia Schwartzberg grew up looking up at a photo of her father on a wall at Main Line Reform Temple.
That wall was filled with...
The Cantorate’s Future Is Bright at Hebrew College
NEWTON CENTRE, MASSACHUSETTS — On a bright Monday morning, about 10 miles west of Boston, a group — mostly rabbis and cantors in training...