Lag Ba'Omer

The thirty-third day of the Omer is an occasion for happiness during an otherwise mournful period.

By Francine Klagsbrun for MyJewishLearning.com

Few of the many couples who marry on Lag Ba'Omer give much thought to why this is one of the very few days between Pesah and Shavuot when Jewish law permits weddings.

If they were to investigate, they would find a conflicting array of explanations, all appealing, none definitive.

Why We Celebrate
The explanations begin with the Omer period itself, those forty-nine days that are counted off one by one between the two festivals. This is a time of semi-mourning, when weddings and other celebrations are forbidden, and as a sign of grief, observant Jews do not cut their hair.

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Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha'atzmaut

Yom HaZikaron (Israeli Memorial Day)

 (April 23, 2015)

Following World War II and the establishment of the state of Israel, four new holidays, referred to as ‘modern’ Jewish holidays have been added to the Jewish calendar. Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day), Yom HaAtzmaut (Independence Day) and Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) are observed as national holidays in Israel, and recognized around the world by Jewish communities.

Yom HaZikaron was set aside on the day before Yom HaAtzmaut as a time of memorial for soldiers who lost their lives fighting in the War of Independence and in other battles or wars.

In Israel, it is a solemn day in which all places of entertainment and many businesses are closed. Two-minute sirens are sounded throughout the nation, one in the evening marking the beginning of the holiday and one prior to a public national memorial ceremony.

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Yom Ha'atzmaut: Israel Independence Day

 (April 24, 2015)
Israel's Independence Day is celebrated on the fifth day of the month of Iyar, which is the Hebrew date of the formal establishment of the State of Israel, when members of the "provisional government" read and signed a Declaration of Independence in Tel Aviv.

The original date corresponded to May 14, 1948.

Most of the Jewish communities in the Western world have incorporated this modern holiday into their calendars, but some North American Jewish communities hold the public celebrations on a following Sunday in order to attract more participation. In the State of Israel it is a formal holiday, so almost everyone has the day off.

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The Simpsons Go to Auschwitz

This Thursday, April 16, is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day

By Zachary Solomon for Jewniverse


You may have missed Italian artist aleXsandro Palombo’s work commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. You may be glad you did.

For the anniversary, Palombo released a series of illustrations featuring characters from The Simpsons as Holocaust victims. The images are grotesque and uncanny, and find the Simpsons clan standing before Auschwitz’s infamous wrought-iron promise of “Arbeit Macht Frei,” bone-thin and beaten behind barbed wire, or naked and near-dead in a gray, claw-marked gas chamber. In short, the images are horrifying.

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The Intermediate Days of Passover

By Lesli Koppelman Ross for MyJewishLearning.com

Excerpted from Celebrate! The Complete Jewish Holiday Handbook (Jason Aronson Inc).

The intermediate (hol) festival days (hamoed)--days three through six or two through six in Israel and for the Reform--have a special designation.

Although they are not full festivals, they are still holy relative to ordinary days. Leviticus refers to them as mikra’ei kodesh, days of sanctity. Even though there are no biblical prohibitions against work or travel, the rabbis ruled that gainful work is forbidden (you can work if material loss would occur). This was to distinguish the time from normal weekdays and provide greater opportunity for Torah.

We read the Torah in synagogue on each intermediate day, conduct the Musaf (additional) service ordained for Shabbat and festivals [except in the Reform tradition], and recite the partial Hallel [Psalms of praise]. Because only part is said on the seventh day, which is a full festival, we cannot elevate a semi-festival above it.

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Passover: Bringing Israel into your Seder

From the iCenter.org

The Passover Seder is a unique opportunity to have an open discussion with your friends, family and loved ones. Below, please find a few suggestions of how to bring Israel into your Passover conversation.

Next year in Jerusalem

The Passover Seder traditionally ends with the phrase, L'shanah haba'ah beyerushalaim – Next year in Jerusalem! Which begs the question: How can we bring the people, land, and the mocern State of Israel into our Seder this year?

Get the conversation rolling:

1. What does next year in Jerusalem mean to you?  Talk about how modern Israel fits into your identity. Have you ever been to Jerusalem? How often does your family go to Israel? Do you see Israel as more than a tourist destination?  Have you ever thought about living in Israel?

2. When you think of Passover and Israel, what comes to mind? Ask your guests to bring a picture of what Israel means to them to the Seder, and share that meaning around the table. (Think: Israelis shopping for Pesach; A calendar showing only one Seder, as Israelis observe; chametz burning fires in parks; or more conceptual ideas, like Israel as freedom

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First-ever Canadian Haggadah has a distinctly north-of-the-border vibe

By Ron Csillag for JTA

In this rendition of the Passover story, the Children of Israel do not play ice hockey or drink kosher l’Pesach maple syrup.

But the first-ever Canadian Haggadah does have a distinctly Canuck vibe.

For one thing the Canadian Haggadah Canadienne is in three languages – English, French and Hebrew. And instead of the standard illustrations of the Israelites building the pyramids or Moses parting the Red Sea, it features archival photographs that trace the history of Canada’s Jewish community, the world’s fourth largest.

The volume offers “a Canadian perspective on our timeless story of freedom – our Jewish history as seen through Canadian eyes,” states its introduction.

Compiled by Rabbi Adam Scheier of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal and Richard Marceau, general counsel and political adviser at the Ottawa-based Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the hefty (168-page) Haggadah aims “to deepen the Canadian Jewish identity by presenting something that’s uniquely Canadian,” Scheir told JTA. “It’s never been done.”

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How Martin Luther King, Jr. Inspired a Passover Seder

By Tamar Fox for Jewniverse

Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated just eight days before Passover in 1968. Among those grieving his loss were Jews who had joined his nonviolent protest movement, and were dedicated to the causes of civil rights and peace that he championed. Many Jews brought discussions about civil rights to their seder tables that year.

By the next year, Rabbi Arthur Waskow had come up with the Freedom Seder. The inaugural seder, held in a black church in the heart of Washington D.C., and attended by Jews and other civil rights activists, intertwined the story of slavery under Pharaoh with the story of Black America’s struggle for liberation, and the liberation of other peoples as well.

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