My paternal grandfather’s family assimilated so long ago that my great-great-grandmother used to spoil my grandfather by sneaking him pork chops in place of veal chops! Only one of my four grandparents was raised religious – my mother’s father. But like the rest of my recent ancestors, he too walked away from the ways of […]
In the 1940’s, Vered Ben Sa’adon’s Dutch grandmothers grew up close to one another in terms of distance, yet were living worlds apart. As teenagers, one of them hid from the Nazis while the other aided them. Like Anne Frank, her paternal grandmother, Liesje de Vries, not only lived in hiding for years, she also wrote […]
Editor’s Note: Last week at my daughter’s school, I saw a wonderful quote by Abraham Lincoln. One of his general’s said, “We should pray that God is on our side. Lincoln responded, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always […]
Many Orthodox Jews Had Their Phones Off During the Sabbath. Then They Learned of a Massacre. Many of America’s most observant Jews refrain from using phones, television or the Internet on the Sabbath. On Saturday, it resulted in a shock. How an Orthodox Businesswoman Rose in the Ranks at the NSA Forty-two-year-old Anne Neuberger, an […]
Several months ago, we were filming a mini-documentary about Orthodox Judaism with Blue Chalk Media, but we weren’t allowed to say more than that. We’re thrilled to announce that this short film was for Pearson Education – one of the largest education publishers in the world – and this film is being shown to 1 […]
Marilyn Monroe once sang “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend,” but perhaps she should have added “and siddurim are a Jewish girl’s faithful companion.” Earlier this month, the media exploded (to the tune of 30,000 plus articles!) when news that Monroe’s personal siddur was being auctioned off, but very few people knew the auctioneer is […]
