(Editor’s Note: While this article was written years before October 7, its words ring truer than ever. The Jewish people are experiencing the worse calamity in our lifetimes and even as we heal, we will forever carry brokenness. This is not new to our people. Rabbi Aaron Goldscheider poignantly explains what it looks like to […]

A special time of mourning for the Beis HaMikdash interrupts our regularly scheduled summer fun each year, as we enter into the three weeks leading up to Tisha b’Av (the 9th of Av). The saddest day in the Jewish Calendar, Tisha b’Av marks the destruction of the Temples, as well as several other major tragedies […]

Dear Jew in the City, Why are we forced to be sad in the Three Weeks? Best, Aaron Thanks for your question, Aaron. For those who may not be aware, the Three Weeks is a period of increasing mourning that runs from the seventeenth day of the month of Tammuz through the ninth day of […]

After the tragic collapse in Surfside, Florida of the Champlain Towers South condominium building, the community’s strong Orthodox Jewish contingent has been working nonstop to maintain traditional Jewish burial customs for the many Jewish victims. From through the period between death and burial known as aninut, the tahara, the ritual cleansing of the bodies, to […]

Dear JITC- I’ve already been experiencing a very hard time with lockdown. Not listening to music during the three weeks seems daunting from a mental health perspective. Is there any leniency in that regard considering the state of the world? Thanks, Tsippy Dear Tsippy- I hesitate to answer this question because it strays dangerously close […]

Dear JITC- What did Rabbi Akiva’s students do wrong? Whatever they did, isn’t killing 24,000 of them a bit much? Thanks, Daria Dear Daria- Thanks for your question. Allow me to flesh it out a bit for the benefit of those who may not have the necessary frame of reference. The sefirah period, which lasts […]