By Bill Simons
On a Father’s Day several years ago, my father, my son and I stood before a large wall mirror adjusting our ties as we prepared to join the rest of the family. In the mirror image, the three generations were looking good – and upbeat. Then, my father turned to the empty s…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Spoiler alert: Rabbi Wayne Allen’s “Thinking about Good and Evil: Jewish Views from Antiquity to Modernity” (The Jewish Publication Society) does not solve the theological problem of good and evil. In fact, Allen notes that’s not even the purpose of his book…
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Two novels written almost 80 years apart. Two authors describing a reality that borders on absurdity. Two characters whose flight from the Nazis mixes humor and horror. These statements only partly describe “The Passenger” by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz (Metropol…
By Bill Simons
Andy Cohen was not the first Jewish major leaguer. That distinction belongs to Lip Pike, a good hitting outfielder who played in the maiden seasons of both the National Association (1871) and the National League (1876). Nor was Cohen the best Jewish baseball player. A couple …
By Rabbi Rachel Esserman
Jewish summer food has been on my mind now that the hot weather has hit – or rather the lack of food that could be called that. The only specific Jewish summer food I remember from my childhood is the cold borscht my father used to eat: the beet soup turned a beau…
