Sunday night, as I lit the first candle of the Menorah, I thought about my personal journey of performing this incredible commandment with pride and joy. My story begins in 1982 in Odessa, Ukraine, which at the time was controlled by the Soviet Union. I was raised in a traditional Soviet family at a time […]

It is early Shabbos morning. I’m relaxing on the couch with my ritual morning coffee, inhaling the steam, wrapping myself in the serenity of Shabbos. My siddur rests on my lap, awaiting my sacred time spent with God. Honestly, I carry God with me all the time, sometimes consciously and other times unconsciously. Sometimes I […]

The Lev Tahor extremist cult has been in the news lately with a horrific kidnapping crime. They have warped even the most stringent forms of Judaism to something unrecognizable and get kicked out of every country in which they have tried to settle. But as the brainwashed members and their leaders search for a home, […]

Even though I grew up in a Hindu household and was exposed to other polytheistic religions throughout my childhood, I always found myself praying to one God. This innate pull toward one God foreshadowed my eventual conversion to Orthodox Judaism. I was introduced to Judaism during my training as an auxiliary police officer for the […]

I had always been way too mature and intelligent for my age. I was the kind of kid who would stump the teachers with the difficult questions, the one who effortlessly mastered all subjects and always had her nose in a book. For as long as I can remember I always felt out of place […]

Dear Makom, It is near impossible for me to describe the influence that you’ve had on my life. I will try, for better for worse, to detail where I was when I found you, and where I am now. To show how you revealed the path for me to heal from the depths of emotional […]