Scouting promotes so many values we want for our daughter: love of nature, respect for the environment, equality and teamwork, and responsibility for our fellow humans. Judaism, of course, imparts these same teachings.
Judaism was so unfamiliar to my son that he was wary of my Hanukkah gift. I felt as though, at such a young age, he was choosing to shun my religion, to identify with Christianity. Of course, if he chooses to identify with either religion later in life, that decision will be his own – but for now, I need to at least give Judaism a fighting chance.
So how will I talk about these values with my sons amid all the shiny confetti, slick commercials, rousing music, and fun snacks? Simply put, the Super Bowl compromises my Jewish values, and I want to pass those values along to my kids.
What do we teach our children when we seek entertainment in the spectacle of two human beings each trying to maim the other or render her senseless? And yet, should we be surprised? After all, we live in a country where mass murder occurs on a regular basis.
As the working mom of three kids, a five-year-old and two-and-a-half-year-old twins, most of my week-day mornings go something like this:
When my brother Jerry died, the questions were not just where to sit shiva or for how long. They were more fundamental: Should I sit shiva for my non-Jewish brother at all?
As a mixed-race couple with two young, mixed-race children living in a small community, we see an American Judaism that is ready to be open and responsive to the increasing demographic diversity in our country.
I get asked a lot if I’m “half.” Often, people are referring to my mixed Caucasian and Asian American heritage, their curiosity sparked by my Korean last name on my Jewish business card or by whatever other seeming tip arises on a given day.
The challenges and contradictions of being a Jew in America are never more obvious than in the month of December. Christmas is unavoidable from before Thanksgiving until well after New Year's.
“Leadership is about moving the stored energy in society to where it can be best utilized,” said community organizer Andrew Slack at the inaugural New York Area Jewish Teen Leadership Summit, sponsored by the Union for Reform Judaism and the North American