Amid ongoing calls from Jewish students and alumni for the date to be moved, the University of Pennsylvania has said it will not be altering the date of its planned commencement ceremony, which currently falls on the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. As of Tuesday morning, more than 1,600 individuals had signed a petition asking that…
'No, really, I don’t want any cheesecake'
Few celebrations occurred to mark this year’s Jewish American Heritage Month, which ends on Monday. Trapped in our houses and apartments while a plague ravages our country, somberness and anxiety are our constant companions. Our synagogues have been shuttered, our schools closed, and our community centers emptied. The mood and circumstances have not been conducive…
The breathtaking Seven Heaven Challah brings a diversity of Jewish experiences and palates to your festive Shavuot table. A lesser-known Sephardi custom, it mixes together the celebration of the wheat harvest of Shavuot, Chag Hakatzir, (the Harvest Festival) with the customary milk-based foods associated with the revelation of Torah at Mount Sinai. Also called Los…
For most communities, the coronavirus has cancelled Shavuot. That’s because the standard Shavuot celebration revolves around public, shared space events like all-night Jewish learning at a synagogue or JCC. But there is a way to bring this experience home and, in doing so, make it far better. The all-night Shavuot program is a flawed product….
I spent last Shavuot at a “walking, sitting, writing” retreat in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Seven thousand feet above sea level, I planted my feet in the red-brown earth at the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. I held a pen between my fingers. I wrote on a page. When I signed up for…
“I went away full and have returned empty” (Ruth 1:21) This Shavuot, when the Jewish people open up the book of Ruth, it will be Naomi’s cry that will resonate in our souls. There is a natural catastrophe, resulting in geographic displacement and economic insecurity. The deaths of Naomi’s husband and two sons are devastating,…
If you’re from New York, the name Ratner’s gives you dewy-eyed nostalgia for the great dairy restaurant of yore. But I’m from LA, and Ratner’s just makes me think of my dentist, Dr. Farkas, whose office is on Ratner St. There’s a connection– Alex Ratner came west in 1914 to beat back tuberculosis, and he…
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