A Rally for Harmony

by Mimi Schwartz (Princeton, NJ)
As an American Jew—the child of German refugees—overt anti-Semitism was my parents’ old world, not mine. There’d be an occasional remark here and there, but everyone gets that in multi-ethnic New Jersey. No big deal, I thought, until 500 anti-Semitic flyers were posted on the walls and kiosks of the college [...]

Shma Israel

By George  Oscar  Lee (Aventura, FL)
Hear O Israel…
This time O Lord You listen!
Did You, God, see the smoke from Auschwitz
Made of innocent souls?
Or read the sign Arbeit Macht Frei?
Did You hear the moans of murdered children?
Shma Israel, Adonoy Eloheynu
God in heavens!
Where are the millions of your chosen?
Soil covered their mass graves,
Unburned remnants of holy Torahs
The [...]

Shema: Hear! Listen!

By Gloria Scheiner (Sarasota, FL)
We signed the Shema today.
We cupped our ears and raised one finger to show the Lord is One.
It was Tot Shabbat at my daughter Elana’s temple, and everyone was called to listen.
The Lord is One, and we were one Jewish community.
The parents recited the blessing over their sons and daughters, and, [...]

Caring For Our Parents

by Rena Y. Polonsky (New York, NY)
It is a short, shocking story:
“Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a cloth, placed it against both their backs and, walking backwards, they covered their father’s nakedness; their faces were turned the other way, so [...]

A Miracle In Rhodes

by Helene Kroll Gupp (Sarasota, FL)
It was September, after Rosh Hashanah, and we were on the island of Rhodes searching for a synagogue to spend the most sacred of all our holidays–Yom Kippur.
Along with another couple, we had flown to Athens, then to Mykonos, and now we were in hot and blindingly sunny Rhodes.  Somehow, [...]