By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
I have what some might consider an unusual quirk when meeting someone new at my synagogue: I never ask them what they do for a living. While I’m more than happy to learn about their work/career if they are interested in talking about it, in the context of the sy…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
This is America: An armed, masked group marched in Columbus, OH, holding flags with swastikas on them. This is America: Members of the Black population have received text notifications that they have been “selected” to pick cotton “at the nearest plantation.…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
There is an enormous amount of anger boiling across the United States. Some people are angry at what they see as restrictions on their rights to act, think or behave as they wish. Others are angry because they don’t believe they have the same protection under the …
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
It’s difficult to write about Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove’s book “For Such a Time as This: On Being Jewish Today” (Harvest) without offering a personal take on his view of American Jewry and its relationship to Israel and Judaism. I generally avoid reading books f…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
I recently had a conversation with a neighbor who doesn’t own a computer. She’s younger than me by a few years, so age is not the reason. She doesn’t trust computers and mentioned that she’s not sure she trusts the smart meters New York State Electric and Ga…
