Parshas Yisro – Here Comes the Sunshine

Fast forward fifty years, and our Tu B’Shvat experience is quite different. Here in Eretz Yisrael, not only are the major holidays celebrated throughout the country and across all lines, but even the minor festivals have been transformed into major events. [Rabbi Avraham Bogopulsky]

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California, Israel, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, San Diego County, Staff and Bylined Contributors, USA

OpEd: Jewish forces are ready to confront the perceived enemy

New York City’s new mayor faces two initiatives aimed at precluding any of his actions that Jewish leaders fear might harm Israel or their fellow Jews in the Big Apple. Predictably, the 34-year-old Mamdani will face a firestorm if he does anything that is perceived as damaging. [Bruce S. Ticker]

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Antisemitism, Bruce Ticker, Israel, Opinion, Staff and Bylined Contributors, USA

Light Amidst the Pyres: A Review of Richard Zimler’s The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon

Richard Zimler’s 1996 debut, The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, is a towering achievement in this genre. It is a work that breathes life into the suffocating atmosphere of 16th-century Portugal, weaving a narrative that is simultaneously a grisly locked-room mystery, a pulse-pounding thriller, and a profound meditation on Jewish mysticism. [Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel]

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Antisemitism, Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Holocaust, International, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, Staff and Bylined Contributors

JPAC reports another victory in the fight for AB 715

Recently, a federal court decisively rejected an effort to block AB 715 from taking effect. In a sweeping ruling, the judge found that the law is constitutional, consistent with the First Amendment, and neither vague nor overbroad. As a result, AB 715 went into effect statewide on January 1. [David Bocarsly]

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Antisemitism, California, Holocaust, Science, Medicine, & Education, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Jan Brokken’s “The Just; How Six Unlikely Heroes Saved Thousands of Jews from the Holocaust” tells of stories of courage

Throughout this book, which is based on extensive research, interviews with survivors, and far-reaching travel to almost all the places mentioned, the writer inserts his own personal insights and experiences, giving the reader a unique and lively account of how events developed and what people experienced. [Dorothea Sefer-Vanson]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Parsha Yitro: When insight becomes habit

True transformation rarely arrives with ceremony. It interrupts, startles, and whispers, “There is another way to exist.” These moments are intruders in our thoughts; small sparks of clarity that jolt us awake. In therapy and psychological coaching, we recognize this as the difference between insight and change: awareness alone rarely heals; transformation begins when insight is translated into action. [Michael R. Mantell, Ph.D.]

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Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Michael Mantell, Staff and Bylined Contributors

Too Late for Ethics: Nuremberg, Fidelity, and the Consolation of Judgment

Nuremberg (directed by James Vanderbilt) does not grossly falsify history. It does something subtler and more contemporary: it persuades us that ethics has finally arrived—precisely because it arrives after everything that truly mattered has already happened. [Sam Ben-Meir]

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Holocaust, Jewish History, Staff and Bylined Contributors, Theatre, Film & Broadcast

REVIEW: Black and Jewish: An Interwoven History, Part 1 – Let My People Go

Because I live in the intersection of being both Black and Jewish, I have learned about my identity over the years, both through experience, stories handed down to me, education, and reading. [Barrett Holman Leak]

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Antisemitism, Barrett Holman Leak, California, Holocaust, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, Lifestyles, Opinion, Philanthropy & Volunteerism, San Diego County, Staff and Bylined Contributors, Theatre, Film & Broadcast