jewish

JBC Talk: Ep 3: Making Prayer Real Part 1 – An Interview With Rabbi Mike Comins

Episode Synopsis In this episode of The JBC Talk Podcast, we bring you Part One of our fascinating (and we should add, very long) interview with Rabbi Mike Comins, author of Making Prayer Real – Leading Jewish Spiritual Voices On Why Prayer Is Difficult and What To Do About It , published by Jewish Lights. If you aren’t already familiar with Making Prayer Real, you may want to check out Yair’s recent review of the book, which can be found here. Also, if you would like to have a peek at … [Read more…]

Special Needs and the Jewish Community

About ten years ago I was working for an agency that worked with children and teens (and their parents) who were emotionally disturbed. Some of these children/teens were also intellectually challenged. Three of the children I worked with were from the same family. All three were intellectually challenged as well as emotionally disturbed (their older brother had molested all three of them). I found the work challenging – and at times downright difficult – but I would not have given up that … [Read more…]

In Atlanta – African Americans Are Digging Judaism

Last night I stumbled across an interesting article from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution website about what appears to be a surge in African American Converts to Judaism in the Atlanta area. I know we have several African American readers, who are either JBC’s, in the process of converting or are interested in learning more about Judaism, so I thought I would do a quick post to let people know about it. Here is a snippet “For a black male to put on a kipah and go wandering around … [Read more…]

Return to the Jewish Mission

Saul Singer, an opinion columnist who appears in the Friday Jerusalem Post, wrote on 7 March about the Jewish mission. The article was entitled, “From survival to purpose.” Here are some of the pieces of his article that I found particularly interesting: To modern Jews, the idea of a Jewish mission is either antiquated, messianic (in the sense of unreal) or radical. Many Jews have a vague notion that they had a mission. They are roughly cognizant that monotheism, a strange notion when it … [Read more…]

Me and Christmas

Avi and Tamara invited me to cross-post and guest-post, so here I am crossing and guesting from Accidentally Jewish. All right, fine, I’ll admit it. This was a harder-than-expected Christmas for me. I got teary eyed during Will Farrell’s Elf. I got choked up watching Beauty and the Beast. I didn’t mind the Christmas Carols so much. I made the Christmas Tree. I made ornaments. I wrapped presents with no care about the significance of the color paper. I accepted a stocking and filled stockings. I … [Read more…]