About a month ago, just before Opening Day of the 2013 Major League Baseball season, I received an email from a newspaper reporter who asked if I had time available to discuss Jewish baseball players. I had recently read a fascinating review of John Rosengren's new Hank Greenberg book in...

Today is Yom Hashoah, the annual day of remembrance for victims of the Holocaust. While it is still morning, it has already been the most meaningful Yom Hashoah experience for me.

I actually had a feeling that Yom Hashoah 2013 wouldn't be like past experiences. On Feb. 7 of this...

I began collecting different versions of the haggadah, the Passover seder's playbook-script-manual, when I was in college. It all started by ordering a new one each year in anticipation of the holiday and somehow my collection now exceeds 100 and has demanded its own bookcase. This pales in comparison with...

Passover, which begins on March 25, is one of the most widely observed Jewish holidays. Each year during the Passover seder, Jewish people attempt to integrate the old traditions of the holiday with innovations. Mostly, these innovations are meant to keep the children (and many of the adults too!) alert...

The article in yesterday's Sunday Review section of the New York Times titled "The Holocaust Just Got More Shocking" uncovers the recent scholarly discoveries that the Holocaust was in fact even more catastrophic than researchers once thought. Such news almost 70 years after the Shoah reaffirms what a...

Empathy is never easy. As a man, I confess that I have struggled to be empathetic to the cause of the Women of the Wall (Nashot HaKotel). This group of women has been coming to the Kotel Hama'arivi (Western Wall) in the Old City of Jerusalem for close to a...

A recent editorial in the Forward demonstrates how much the American rabbinate has changed in the 21st century. The economy has made it difficult for many rabbis to find good jobs; and for them to keep good jobs when the synagogue or organization falls on tough financial times. A...

This Shabbat is one of the four Jewish New Years set forth in the Mishna. Tu Bishvat, or Jewish Arbor Day, occurs on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Sh'vat. In addition to being a birthday for trees, the holiday is deeply connected to the agricultural cycle of...

When the news first broke last April that Detroit Tigers outfielder Delmon Young had been arrested in New York City for making an anti-Jewish slur following a night of drinking, I wrote about my disappointment in him on my blog. I explained that, after hearing this news, it...

Stories of airlines damaging travelers' baggage are about as common as delayed flights these days, but a particularly dreadful mishap occurred recently. Dave Schneider, the lead guitarist of a Jewish band called the Leevees (with Guster's Adam Gardner) that produces only Hanukkah-themed songs, was traveling on a flight from Buffalo...

My rabbinic networks have been abuzz about the second episode of a new reality TV show on TLC called "The Sisterhood." I first learned of the controversial episode when someone tweeted the clip to me asking me what I thought. I then sent an article about the episode from The...

Whenever I'm asked if the Jewish holidays are coming early or late this year, I promptly answer that they'll be coming on time. And that's partially true. Rosh Hashanah will always arrive on the first day of the Jewish month of Tishrei just as Hanukkah will always begin on the...

There are Zionists and there are lovers of Israel. Some are both.

On a United Jewish Appeal mission to Israel in 1982 Larry Ritter claims he became a full Jew. There was no conversion involved as he was born Jewish and raised in an Orthodox home. However, the Livingston, N.J.,...

I don't recall "The Jewish Vote" ever being such a widely discussed topic during a presidential election in my lifetime. Not only is there speculation about how American Jews will vote today, but opinion polling of Israelis is making world news as well.

A Times of Israel survey...

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, an influential ultra-Orthodox rabbi, says it is forbidden for religious Jews to own an iPhone and has instructed his followers to burn the device if they own one. It's not that Kanievsky sides with Android in the smartphone war, but that he's concerned about what observant Jews...

"Tuedays With Morrie" Author Reminds Us To Live Life and Worry Less About Keeping Time

I have a feeling that author Mitch Albom timed the release of his new book, "The Time Keeper," to coincide with the Jewish High Holy Days. This work of fiction forces us to...

After posting a photo [below] with Matisyahu backstage at his recent Detroit concert, the questions began. Friends wanted to know if he was wearing a kippah (yarmulke) or tzitzit (ritual fringes), whether he was eating kosher, and if I asked him if he was still frum (religious). For the record,...

I was emotionally moved as I watched Detroit Tigers' slugger Prince Fielder accept the 2012 Home Run Derby award on Monday night in Kansas City with his two adorable sons proudly standing next to him. But it also struck me as sad that Prince's father Cecil Fielder wasn't in that...

My mother isn't/wasn't Jewish, my father is. I was raised Reform, had a Bat mitzvah, [was Jewishly educated, celebrated holidays, identify as Jewish, participated in the Jewish community, did not participate in or celebrate any other faith or religion,] etc. If I have children with a man recognized as fully...

When I first heard that a rally was planned for Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews to protest the Internet, I didn't think it would attract much attention. After all, the Internet has long been under attack in Haredi communities and their rabbinic leaders have forbidden it in the past.

The event on...