Zaidy didn’t talk much of the war, but we knew that what he went through was horrid. As a child, he would look at me and cry. He cried easily: when he prayed for the sick, when he said the blessing of Shecheyianu, and when he would bless us on Erev Yom Kippur. I always […]
MTA Officials Ask Orthodox Jewish Transit Worker to Prove He’s Observing Rosh Hashanah MTA officials demanded an Orthodox Jewish transit worker prove he observes Rosh Hashanah for “a religious reason” in order to get the holiday off. Benjamin Schaeffer, a 22-year MTA transit worker, was initially denied permission to take off for the Jewish new […]
An Improbable Relic of Auschwitz: a Shofar That Defied the Nazis The daughter of a Holocaust survivor has brought forward a ram’s horn trumpet and her father’s account of the power of belief amid death. He described for his family how, despite the danger, this shofar, or ceremonial ram’s horn, was blown at the camp […]
Rare Combo: Religious Jew Takes Jazz Music Scene by Storm Israeli saxophonist and jazz singer Daniel Zamir was born to secular parents in Petah Tikva, but while studying at a prestigious New York university, he found a connection to the Jewish faith and returned to Israel as a reborn Jew, becoming the first Haredi musician […]
Two-thirds of the world either doesn’t know that the Holocaust happened—or they deny that it did. The Jewish community has invested tremendous resources to spread awareness and education about the Holocaust, in order to prevent another one, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Additionally, 41% of Americans don’t know what Auschwitz is and 56% of Austrians don’t […]
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 […]
