This year, the Jewish community will greet Passover with mixed emotions. On a holiday where we celebrate the 3,500-year-old Exodus from Egyptian slavery to freedom, we also mourn the modern-day hostages held captive for so long and the loss of…
I am human. I share many elements of my nature with other beings on this planet. I laugh, I cry, I aspire to things, hope for things, wish for things, work for things. No different than it is for others,…
There may not be magic at hand to prepare dinner or clean up afterwards, but the Weasleys’ home in the Harry Potter series, the Burrow, is a good model for how to welcome guests, with Mrs. Weasley’s always sharing her…
In middle school, we studied the 1920s in English and social studies. It was a period ripe with new slang. I remember the long list of phrases we had to learn and interpret. The surprise was that I knew some…
In December, our federal government offered a hastily assembled tax break that lasted until mid-February. The most memorable part of it was that the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) chose to exempt “Hanukkah trees or bushes” from taxes. Your reaction might…
There are so many huge transitions lately when it comes to world leaders in the news. From impeaching the South Korean president to the fleeing of Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad, or the issues around Netanyahu, Trump or Trudeau, there’s political change…
Imagine teenagers, hanging out and sharing the usual in-group slang, but they’re saying “Lashon hara? Lamed hay! Tell it to me anyway!” This sarcastic chant was new to me, when Miriam Anzovin, the famous Jewish Talmud influencer, mentioned it on…
I know I have sinned. Haven’t we all? How then to achieve redemption when I have this whole mountain of transgressions looming over me? I can see it clearly every time I look in the mirror. Was it Yogi Berra…
We recently had some work done on our garage. In 2021, when we purchased our new home, which was built in 1913, the inspector marveled at the garage, which was an early, purpose-built building meant for cars as compared to…
Hanukkah is a holiday made joyous by its origins in the victory of the Jewish people over our oppressors and the liberation by the Maccabees of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. Now, thousands of years later, over eight nights, we…
