Dear Jew in the City, Why do some people approach Yom Kippur as a day of celebration? Sincerely, David Dear David, Um… because it is? On the surface, Yom Kippur may resemble Tisha b’Av, which is the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. On both of these days we refrain from eating and drinking, bathing, […]

50 years ago, On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, a.k.a the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.  In the Golan Heights, about 180 Israeli tanks went against 1,400 from Syria. Along the Suez Canal, fewer than 500 Israeli defenders with only three tanks were […]

Seinfeld has a joke that more people are afraid of public speaking than death. That means that more people would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy. Not me. I was a natural born performer. Was it in my genes? Did my middle-child birth order push me to be louder in order to […]

While Orthodox Jews, especially Hasidim, are often the subject of negative portrayals in the media, with their shared humanity rarely shown, this is a positive story. Eddy Verloes, a photographer from Belgium took a black and white photograph of young Orthodox Jews joyfully running up and down a hill on what looks like a beach. […]