Chicago a cappella in June 2022. The ensemble released Miracle of Miracles: Music for Hanukkah last month. (photo by Kate Scott) The CD Miracle of Miracles: Music for Hanukkah arrived at the Jewish Independent unsolicited. The album, released last month…
Peanut cookies are so good, it’s hard to keep a batch around once you get a whiff of them. (photo by Shelley Civkin) I’m definitely my happiest when it’s blueberry season in Vancouver. You know what I’m talking about –…
Don’t let anybody tell you that recovery from knee replacement surgery is a walk in the park. It’s more like a hobble through hell. A very slow, frustrating, hobble with plenty of hurdles, pain and frustration. But, also, gradual victories…
Israeli artist Ya’acov Agam’s Holocaust memorial is located in Woldenberg Park. (photo by Adina Horwich) On Friday, June 2, about 20 minutes before Shabbat candlelighting, I checked my email. I saw one from Cynthia Ramsay, editor of the Jewish Independent.…
I spent hours online trying to find a suitable piece of art for this year’s Rosh Hashanah cover, then even more hours for what I might do myself. I really wanted to include a shofar in whatever I did, as…
A family performs the kapparot ritual with two hens and a rooster, circa 1901. (photo from Library of Congress via brandeis.edu) Whether or not the custom of eating chicken for a High Holiday meal arose from a desire to replace…
Twelfth-century Jewish thinker Moses Maimonides described the sound of the shofar at Rosh Hashanah as a wake-up call for the soul. (photo from flickr.com/photos/gsankary) The sound of the shofar at Rosh Hashanah, the great 12th-century Jewish thinker Moses Maimonides wrote,…
The existential themes of the High Holidays are meant to create a sensitivity and appreciation of the precious significance of everyday existence. (Jordan Gillard Photography) The themes of death and the “thinness” of human existence recur in the liturgy of…
In his diaries, Franz Kafka reflected that our not knowing “the real highway” we’re on means that “we drift in doubt. But, also in an unbelievable, beautiful diversity. Thus, the accomplishment of hopes remains an always unexpected miracle.” (photo from…
