Though he may be the only hasid in the world to boast bleached-blond peyos, singing at the White House and appearing in a Pepsi commercial, Lipa Schmeltzer  (also known as “The Jewish Elvis,” and “The Lady Gaga of Hasidic Music”) had a rather typical hasidic upbringing in terms of religion. Emotionally, there were challenges. Growing up […]

  Film Review: Keep Quiet “Keep Quiet” is a fascinating documentary featuring Csanad Szegedi, a prominent, unabashedly anti-Semitic leader of controversial extremist groups whose political career derails when it emerges that his own family was Jewish not so long ago — even falling victim to the same Holocaust he and his cronies have denied.  Abruptly […]

Does Orthodox Judaism promote compassion and non-judgment or fire and brimstone? As a secular Jew growing up, I believed it represented the latter. There was nothing appealing to me about it. Then, I began to learn and meet Orthodox Jews and discovered that the Torah is “D’rachecha darchei noam v’chol n’tivotseha shalom.” (Its ways are those of […]

Who could look up at the sky in the midst of the hells of Auschwitz and take a moment to thank God for its beauty? A 13 boy named Andrew Burian who was raised in an affluent, modern Orthodox home in Bustina, which was then part of Czechoslovakia (now Ukraine). Andrew’s childhood was idyllic. His world […]

The culmination of the Three Weeks, an annual time of mourning the destruction of The Beis HaMikdash (Holy Temple) is Tisha b’Av. It is the saddest day of the Jewish year and the most calamitous in our history. So great was our pain on this day as a nation, that each year we commemorate it […]

Best Foreign Language Film is not usually the most talked about award at the Golden Globes, but it will be this year – at least for the Jewish community! Last night at the 73rd annual Golden Globe awards, Son of Saul, a Hungarian film about the Holocaust won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language […]