Scribe, the Forward’s curated contributor network, is a place for showcasing personal experiences and perspective from across our Jewish communities. Here you will find a wide array of reflections on Jewish issues, life-cycle events, spirituality, culture and more.
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You say matzah — and matzo and matzuh and matzee and more
Readers respond to our editor-in-chief’s column about a Passover copy-editing conundrum
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What I hope we learn from two Passovers in social distancing exile
Last year, as we prepared for our first physically distanced Seder, I wrote a poem, my first ever, about the ritualistic importance of U’rchatz: handwashing, in times of a pandemic. It ends with: To remember all those who have lost or have been lost. Tonight, we wash our hands for ourselves, and for others, We…
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Reagan’s civic seder: imagining and celebrating our collective freedom
In the sculpture garden of the National Gallery of Art, Marc Chagall’s “Orphée” depicts a group of people about to cross a sea. According to the museum, the image is a reference not only to the “general immigration of Europeans to America, but also to [Chagall’s] own experience” – the Jewish artist fled the USSR,…
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Plastover: my springtime exodus from plastic waste
Passover has long been my favorite Jewish holiday. I love the seder, the songs, the symbolism, and the mythical story of an epic journey to freedom. On the other hand, while I love a matzo ball as much as the next semite, I’ve struggled to make the prohibition on leavened foods personally meaningful. While we…
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In our new world ‘order,’ remembering that Seder is what — and when — you make it
It was the morning of the first Seder in 2018 when I woke up to a series of missed calls from my dad. My gut seized. Multiple missed calls are never good. “Meg, we’re in the E.R.,” he said when I reached him. “Your mother was having trouble lifting her arms above her head to…
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After the Boulder shooting, I ask the Four Questions
Yesterday afternoon, I learned of an active shooter at Kings Soopers Supermarket from a 9 year-old. Yes — a 9 year-old boy who had been on his mom’s iPad playing games when the Huff Post alert crossed the screen. Later in the afternoon when talking with a parent, she said her child seemed less shocked…
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Reigniting charoses traditions
Growing up in Chicago in the 1950s, mine was the only lunch bag that trailed matzo crumbs. On coming to America we lived in a Polish Catholic immigrant neighborhood so I had no friends with whom to compare seder rituals. Despite this, Passover has always been my favorite holiday. No other yontiff rituals compared to…
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As we approach the second pandemic Passover, thoughts on a year of plagues
When a particularly distressing topic would arise, the great Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem used to say: “Let’s talk about something more pleasant, like the plague in Minsk.” Well, now we have our own plague, and it is almost all that anybody talks about. Some feel the need to understand why we are suffering; answers range…
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Do Israeli politics pose a risk to American Judaism?
When I was a graduate student studying ancient Jewish History, I had to pour through hundreds of primary sources — each with their own bias and agenda — in an attempt to arrive at somewhat of an objective picture of a historical situation. In a couple hundred years, when future Jewish historians want to understand…
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Passover and the California ethnic studies curriculum
This piece was originally published in the J. of Northern California. With Passover just around the corner, beginning on March 27, Jews around the world are preparing to participate in a ritual retelling both of our suffering as an oppressed people and of our miraculous redemption from the suffering of Mitzrayim, Hebrew for ancient Egypt….
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What the rabbi learned from the lobster
The death of the Chasidic rabbi and famed psychiatrist, Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski, on Jan. 31 prompted much coverage in the U.S. and Israel, where he lived in his later years. But the press missed a major element of his important legacy. The obituaries covered his religious and universal appeal through the more than 80…
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Remembering Vernon Jordan, civil rights hero
Last week, Vernon Jones Jr., an American giant, passed away. He wasn’t a flamboyant individual nor one who looked for headlines, but he made remarkable contributions toward advancing this country. I first encountered Jordan when I worked at the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1993. Jordan was close to my boss, the late Commerce Secretary…
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