In the last couple of weeks, the Jewish community has debated the merit or mistake of bringing streamer Clavicular (a known abuser of women and alleged rapist) on a public trip to Israel. Sadly, he is not the first person to get a platform in our community, despite his abuse being known (by at least […]

This Friday night begins the joyful minor holiday of Tu b’Av, the fifteenth of the month of Av. The Talmud says besides Yom Kippur, there was no other holy day as happy for the Jews as Tu b’Av. In the times of the Temple, unmarried Jewish women would dress in white and dance in the vineyards, […]

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 […]

Tisha B’Av – the ninth day of the month of Av – is usually the saddest day of the Jewish calendar, a day of fasting and mourning the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem, among other tragedies. But last year, our family’s Tisha B’Av was far from solemn. Late in June, my husband, Daniel, received […]

Dear Jew in The City, How should we respond to Iran’s threat of war on Tisha B’Av? Sincerely, Yosefa – Dear Yosefa, Thanks for your question. This is a very serious matter, so I’m going to play against type this time by not cracking any jokes. Tisha b’Av is a day of communal mourning. On […]

This Shabbos, the one preceding Tisha b’Av, is known as “Shabbos Chazon” – the Shabbos of the vision. Whose vision? The prophet Isaiah, who saw the destruction that would befall the Jewish people because of the way we baselessly hated one another. The great Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev would say: On the Shabbos of […]