Feature

When you’re the only full-time rabbi in a relatively small and isolated Jewish community – like that found on the Asian island of Taiwan – you’re expected to do much more than lead religious services.

To build a Jewish state in the Middle East, Israelis had to be innovators.

Though there is no synagogue, mikvah or Jewish school in Madagascar, visitors to the African island nation can enjoy a strictly kosher meal, Shabbat services and weekly learning programs.

Talking about death makes some people uncomfortable. Of course, we think we should talk about it. Ninety percent of Americans surveyed said it’s really important that we talk with our loved ones about our wishes for the kind of care we would like at end of life. Yet fewer than 30 percent of us have actually had these conversations.

A group of local Jewish professionals and their guiding rabbi, Rabbi Sholom Skolnik, have been convening to examine the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) as part of a new study group at the Phoenix Community Kollel. If the group members pass a rigorous final exam, they will receive smicha (ordination) as rabbis.

When there was no more space in the synagogue in Nabagoye, Uganda, congregants would go outside, gathering under trees. But the branches weren’t enough to shield them from the rain during the East African country’s wet seasons, which last about half the year.

Jewish spiritual technology is like a freeze-dried wafer. This, according to students of Rabbi Zalman Shachter-Shalomi, was one of his most important teachings.

Next weekend is Tisha B’Av, which is considered the saddest day of the Jewish year. The communal day of mourning marks a number of calamities, including the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem.

It finally happened. My son is almost 9 months old, and this week, for the first time, a stranger came up to me and asked me to “take him somewhere else.” Even worse, it happened at synagogue.

For the first time since it was founded in 1973, Flagstaff’s Heichal Baoranim has a full-time rabbi who lives in Flagstaff.

Sara Wolf was running around a water park in an oversized T-shirt when she became acutely aware of the need for a “less frumpy” yet covered-up swimwear option. So she and Daniella Teutsch, a former fashion industry colleague, launched HydroChic, a swimwear company for women who want to enjoy the water and stay modest at the same time.

On the second night of Passover, we commence the longest-running mitzvah of the Torah: Sefirat HaOmer (Counting the Omer). During this time, we tally the 49 days, starting with Passover and culminating in the holiday of Shavuot. That is when we celebrate the greatest event in history, the revelation of G-d’s Torah at Sinai.

Can the essence of Passover fit into a box? Fans of Manischewitz and Streit’s will undoubtedly answer, “Yes, in a matzah box.”

Groggers, candy and music. A story that involves royalty, a beauty pageant and the antagonist getting hung on a tree. And let’s not forget the costumes. Purim is a joyful holiday that children of all ages can enjoy and appreciate.

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PARK CITY, Utah — It may be the most elevated Shabbat service in the country, and not just because of the spirited singing.

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NEW YORK — In the summer of 2011, Lizzi Heydemann returned to her native Chicago to establish a Jewish community loosely modeled on Ikar, the Los Angeles congregation where she had spent two years as a rabbinic intern.

2015 was a year of change for me, facilitated largely by the birth of my lovely dumpling of a daughter in February. Among the normal challenges of being a first-time parent (learning to cobble together a working brain when it has been addled by lack of sleep, perfecting the art of acting casually when your child decides to poop on you in a public place, and so on), I had the additional challenge of being a non-Jewish woman raising a Jewish daughter.

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NEW YORK — When Rabbi Lila Kagedan spends her first Shabbat at the Mount Freedom Jewish Center in Randolph, New Jersey, later this month, she will be making history.

I’ve always been a big believer in the family Shabbat experience. In our family, we light Shabbat candles together every Friday night in our dining room – a room our boys so rarely eat or play in that they actually call it the “Shabbat room,” since that’s what we do there. We sing “Shabbat Shalom” and give high fives and kisses to everyone.

Three years ago, Rabbi Ariel Shoshan of Ahavas Torah in Scottsdale, in partnership with Neal Brooks, who owns a farm in Geronimo, Arizona, purchased three young female donkeys. The reason behind this purchase was the potential to fulfill the mitzvah of seeing a pidyon peter chamor, the redemption of a firstborn male donkey.

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NEW YORK — Christmas is a day like any other in most Chasidic neighborhoods in New York: Children go to school, shops are open, and tinsel and holly are nowhere to be seen.

Until the late Rabbi Albert Plotkin of Congregation Beth Israel celebrated his second bar mitzvah in 2004 at 83, Martin Rosenthal never knew about the custom. So Rosenthal promised himself that if he made it to age 83, he would also like to have a second bar mitzvah. “Well, here I am,” he says. “I have made it.”

When David and Lisa Segal’s son, Oliver, was born, the Conservative mohel that they had scheduled to do their son’s bris canceled at the last minute and they had to scramble to find a replacement. Although they were seeking a Conservative mohel, they found a Reform mohel who was a urologist that agreed to do it. They had their Conservative rabbi officiate at the service and it all worked out, but David Segal says, “This was all done in a panic.” After a discussion after the bris, he and his wife decided that there must be a better option, and the idea for a new business was born.

“‘And Hashem G-d took Adam and He placed him in the Garden of Eden’ (Genesis 2:15). This statement indicates that G-d gave Adam the mitzvah of Shabbat.”