Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.
Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.
Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.
Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the holiday of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year.
BOSTON (JTA) — Massachusetts and Rhode Island have changed their primary dates this year to avoid a conflict with the Jewish High Holidays. In Massachusetts, the secretary of state, William Galvin, announced Tuesday that the voting would be moved up to Sept. 4, the day after Labor Day and two weeks earlier than the original…
My wife and I imagined that we’d be celebrating New Year’s very quietly, at home. She’d be 36 weeks pregnant with our second child — a month till our baby’s due date — and, we assumed, she’d be exhausted. We hadn’t made it to 36 weeks with our first: Four years ago he was born…
Of all prayers in the world, the rabbi of my congregation asked me to write something about Avinu Malkeinu — Our Father, Our King. This prayer, said three times on Yom Kippur has always been a challenge for me. I have a very complex history with so-called fathers and kings, and I’ve dedicated my adult…
On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, we read the story of Sarah’s “miraculous conception” of Isaac at an advanced age. The recounting focuses on the notion of Sarah being “barren” and the necessity for God to intervene. It bothers me that the story never focuses on the role of Abraham, who very well could…
My journey, both personally and professionally, in Orthodox and non-Orthodox circles alike, has introduced me to a surprising divide, one that does not map neatly onto the denominational divide but evokes diverging passions that grow more animated as one moves from right to left. Namely: The practice of reading in shul. Every year I try…
Last week, Bernie Sanders gave a much-touted foreign policy speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the same location where Winston Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” address in 1946. The contents of the speech were intriguing. So was its timing. Sanders delivered it on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. This has become a…
When Rabbi Edward Feld was a teenager, he decided to buy a seat for High Holidays services in a synagogue where no one knew his name. Feld was raised on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and he says that there were always old synagogues that weren’t completely full even on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. By…
NEW YORK (JTA) — As spiritual leader of one of the most widely known Reform synagogues in America, Rabbi Joshua Davidson tries not to be divisive on the holiest days of the year. So on the High Holidays of years past, when he stood before thousands of congregants at Temple Emanu-El in New York City,…
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