Worried about your portfolio, your mortgage, your kid’s college, or your own retirement? Where do we turn? The quote of the week, from Jewish Journal Editor Rob Eshman, hits the nail on the head. When the money is sucked from a community, what’s left is community. Sure, there is less for now to sustain services …
Last night, at Congregation Or Ami, after Shabbat Services, we had a rocking Oneg Dance Party. Our band, Blue Suede Jews – all volunteer member band, played great songs as we danced, shmoozed and celebrated community on Shabbat. Sometimes we forget to get out of our heads and just celebrate life. My wife sent this …
Someone in the mainstream press finally said it out loud: Contrary to what conservative preachers would like us to believe, the Bible has nothing to say about gay marriage, and very little (positive) to say about marriage in general. Newsweek comes along with a blazing article – speaking truth to power – about the hypocracy …
My friend, Rabbi Arnie Sleutelberg of Shir Tikvah in Troy, Michigan, reports that his congregation is about to celebrate the completion of a Torah they commissioned to have written. How amazing is that? According to the Detroit Free Press: The project, called Torah Alive!, was started last year and includes the contributions of 500 people …
There I am, surfing the web, early in the morning with my youngest, when I stumble upon a posting on RJ.org by Or Ami’s Donnie Cohen-Cutler (and his intended Abby), chatting about how to choose a new family last name when one of the parties is hyphenated already. Donnie, as many know, is an Or …
Saw this already myself but saw it again on my fav. blog Ima on (and off) the Bimah. Here’s a shout out to her!
The Associated Press (December 8, 2008) writes: Instead of filling up at the pump, soon Israeli motorists will be able to fill their cars up at the plug. That’s the idea behind Monday’s demonstration of the parking lot of the future, equipped with stations to charge the battery-powered cars scheduled to ply Israel’s streets in …
Looking for a tzedakah project to shine the light of healing and hope during Chanukah? Each year, malaria infects 500 million people, causing over one million deaths, devastating the society and economy of affected regions. Wondering what the “Jewish” is? The Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:9, teaches: WHOEVER SAVES A LIFE SAVES THE WORLD ENTIRE. Why work …
Rabbi Emmanuel Rackman, past Chancellor of New York’s Yeshiva University and President Emeritus of Bar Ilan University in Israel, died in early December, 2008, at age 98. Rabbi Rackman was also the spiritual leader of the prominent Fifth Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan and an outspoken advocate of a more inclusive, intellectually open Orthodox Judaism. What …
My buddy Rick Winer, with whom I will spend a week in Israel next year, writes on his blog that the University of California system has voted to again allow students to study abroad in Israel. He notes: The University of California determined in 2002 that travel to Israel was not sufficiently safe enough for …
American and Israeli newspapers are filled with stories about the ongoing settler violence in Hebron, following the Israeli government’s evacuation of the settlers from the Hebron house. Ha’aretz reported that the IDF declares Hebron area closed military zone after settler rampage. Ha’aretz journalist Avi Issacharoff went so far as to write that the Hebron settler …
Today my kids join me as we choose a Hebrew script for the new Torah Congregation Or Ami will scribe next year. Picking a script is akin to picking a computer font: each scribe has a unique way of writing letters, designing the crowns atop them. Some more ancient, some more modern. Decorative or simple. …
This from American Jewish World Service’s D’var Tzedek on Parshat Vayetze: The bumper sticker on my brother’s car reads, “Everyone does better when everyone does better.” This statement brims with optimism: it is a vision of shared work and shared gain. Yet as I repeat this phrase, the terms begin to flicker: Is the “doing …
The Acorn published an article about the Or Ami Center for Jewish Parenting’s lecture series on Talking to Parents about Talking to Kids about Drugs. The complete original article, written by congregant Julie Buckley, appears below: Talking to Parents about Talking to Kids about DrugsBy Agoura Hills Resident Julie Buckley Congregation Or Ami’s Center for …
A year or two ago, Or Ami’s Temple Teen Night held a program, sponsored by the Family Violence Project of Jewish Family Service, which dealt with teen dating. It profoundly affected our teens, as they had a place to talk about their responsibility to themselves and their peers in terms of appropriate and inappropriate dating. …