The Legacy of the Three Boys

Another story appropriate during The Three Weeks

When Jews from all over the world came together for what really mattered.

by Menachem Joel Spiegel for aish.com

The Jewish nation is one big question mark in history. Having been persecuted throughout the generations, in the natural course of events we should have been gone as a people many years ago. Yet, defying all the odds, the Jewish nation lives and thrives.

This has become known as the “Jewish question.”

Historians have come and gone, each grappling with their own unique theory, but coming to no conclusive answer. Mark Twain, in a particularly famous essay titled “Concerning the Jews,” ended off with a question mark.

“What is the secret of his [the Jew’s] immortality?” were his words. No one since has been able to answer.

Continue reading. 

For more information about The Three Weeks and Tisha B'Av, check out our Shavuot & Summer Holiday Kit

Kaddish with Oprah

An uplifting story to start the Three Weeks

Need a minyan? Nothing is too complicated for the Oprah show.

by Simcha Jacobovici

The phone rang in my New York hotel room. It was 1995, and I was saying Kaddish for my late father, of blessed memory, Joseph Jacobovici. I live in Toronto, but I'm a filmmaker, so I move around.

During my eleven months of saying Kaddish, I ended up in various minyans from San Francisco to Halifax. Once I extended a stopover in Detroit and rushed to the basement of an old shul, where I was greeted by nine octogenarians as if I were the Messiah himself. But the phone call in New York was the start of what turned out to be perhaps the most interesting Kaddish experience of them all.

I had just finished a documentary film called "The Selling of Innocents." The film won an Emmy, attracting the attention of Oprah Winfrey, the American icon and celebrated TV host. The producer at the other end of the telephone line asked if I could fly to Chicago and appear with my fellow producers on the Oprah show the day after next.

I was taken aback. This was the Oprah show. The big time. Great publicity for the film, and great promotion for me and my company.
"I'd love to do it," I said, "but I don't think I can."

"Why not?" the producer asked, her voice betraying her surprise. Nobody says "too busy" to the Oprah show.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

For more information about The Three Weeks and Tisha B'Av, check out our Shavuot & Summer Holiday Kit 

The Three Weeks

The three Weeks begins this year on Friday night, July 3, 2015 

(Since it falls on Shabbat, the fast is observed on Sunday, July 5 at dawn)

Overview and laws of the period leading up to Tisha B'Av.

by Rabbi Shraga Simmons for aish.com

The "Three Weeks" between the 17th of Tammuz and the Tisha B'Av have historically been days of misfortune and calamity for the Jewish people. During this time, both the First and Second Temples were destroyed, amongst other terrible tragedies.

These days are referred to as the period "within the straits" (bein hametzarim), in accordance with the verse: "all her oppressors have overtaken her within the straits" (Lamentations 1:3).

On Shabbat during the Three Weeks, the Haftorahs are taken from chapters in Isaiah and Jeremiah dealing with the Temple's destruction and the exile of the Jewish people.

During this time, various aspects of mourning are observed by the entire nation. We minimize joy and celebration. And, since the attribute of Divine judgement (“din”) is acutely felt, we avoid potentially dangerous or risky endeavors.

Continue reading.

To learn more about The Three Weeks, check out our Shavuot & Summer Holiday Kit

The Life and Good Times of Norman Lear

With no Jewish holidays coming up immediately, we bring you profiles of some well known and some not so well known Jews. Enjoy.

The genius behind ‘All in the Family,’ ‘The Jeffersons,’ and other barrier-breaking TV shows talks about his childhood and career

By Vox Tablet

Archie Bunker, George Jefferson, Mary Hartman, Maude Findlay are just a handful of the iconic characters Norman Lear created for television. In his storied career, Lear tackled abortion, cancer, racism, rape, abuse, interracial relationships, single motherhood, alcoholism, and poverty—subjects many shows today won’t even consider as viable fodder for entertainment. Now 92 years old, Lear got his start writing bits for showmen like Danny Thomas and Jerry Lewis before moving into television and film and then embarking on a second career as an activist (he co-founded People for the American Way).

Now Lear has moved into a new medium—print. He has written Even This I Get To Experience, a memoir, and joins Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry to discuss how his father, who was in jail for several years during Lear’s childhood, inspired and deviates from Archie, what compelled him about writing shows about racial and economic disparities, and why Transparent is the best show on television now.

Listen:

Follow us on   

Mimi Sheraton

With no Jewish holidays coming up immediately, we bring you profiles of some well known and some not so well known Jews. Enjoy.

By Adeena Sussman for Hadassah Magazine

You don’t want to be running late for a first meeting with Mimi Sheraton, but that’s just the predicament I found myself in on a wintry Sunday morning. A New York snowstorm and unexpected subway trouble had conspired against me as I raced down an icy sidewalk to breakfast with the legendary food writer and restaurant critic. In my mind, I imagined the review she would draft of our initial encounter: Distasteful lack of punctuality. Tongue-tied, as if she had just eaten a mouthful of sticky peanut butter. Contrite, like a server apologizing for bad service.

I shouldn’t have worried. i angled my way through a pack of weekend fressers at Russ & Daughters Café on Orchard Street—the sit-down offshoot of the legendary appetizing store on the Lower East Side—to find Sheraton chatting with Danny Bowien, one of New York’s hottest young chefs. Even behind the convenient cover of his hipster glasses, Bowien was clearly as starstruck as I was. Joshua Russ Tepper, a third-generation owner, came over to make sure Sheraton was comfortable, shooting our waiters a silent visual cue: Take care of Mimi.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

Leonard Cohen’s Mystical Midrash

With no Jewish holidays coming up immediately, we bring you profiles of some well known and some not so well known Jews. Enjoy.

By Seth Rogovoy for Hadassah Magazine

Artist of the year, album of the year and “fan choice” of the year. Sarah McLachlan? Justin Bieber? Think again. Improbably, a gruff-voiced Jewish grandfather by the name of Leonard Cohen went into the Juno Awards—Canada’s version of the Grammy Awards—in March with nominations in these three categories. (He won album of the year.)

In some ways, it is no surprise, as Cohen has been on a roll these past few years, selling out theaters, arenas and stadiums around the world and releasing some of the best-selling albums of his nearly 50-year recording career. Along the way, he has had personal and professional ups and downs. At one point seen as one of the greatest voices of his generation, he was consigned to the back shelf by the next, then championed by a later generation, only to leave it all behind and live in a Zen monastery on a California mountain-top for five years.

Continue reading.
Want to know more about other influential Jews? Follow our board    page.

Why Americans Are Fleeing Organized Religion — and What It Means for Jews

 With no Jewish holidays or celebrations until the Three Weeks, we are running articles of interest.

Jane Eisner for The Jewish Daily Forward

I recently attended a wedding where the bride and groom shared Chinese, American and Eastern European roots. Their parents were raised Catholic, Lutheran and Jewish. But the wedding itself, both ceremony and reception, were completely, utterly, 100% secular. God was not invited; no religious ritual made an appearance.

Welcome to the new America.

I thought this scene might just be representative of my family and circle of friends, but no — it speaks to a broad and deep shift in the American religious landscape, as meticulously catalogued by the report issued today by the Pew Research Center. This survey, conducted in 2014 through telephone calls with more than 35,000 adults, is a follow up to a survey similar in size and scope conducted in 2007.

Continue reading.

Follow us on   

For more information about the upcoming holidays, check out our Summer Holiday Kit