FEATURES
Secret Shabes: How the “Sabbath Delight” Hid an Astonishing ArchiveBy Beryl Lieff Benderly
For most American Jews, “Oneg Shabbat,” or “Sabbath delight,” is a joyful social gathering held right after Shabbat services. But the phrase that evokes family, friends and festivity is also associated with a little-known historical chapter involving danger, suspense, courage, tragedy and ultimately, inspiring vindication that emerged from the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. |
Unfinished Business: Restoring Eastern Europe’s Desecrated Jewish Cemeteries
By Linda Topping Streitfeld
Last year, workers building a solar farm on an open field in Poland hit a snag. A stone basement was hidden beneath four feet of grass and dirt. As the men dismantled its walls, Hebrew letters and dates on the stones testified to their source: Jewish graves. |
Polish Pogroms and American Apologies
By Kenneth D. Ackerman
Why has anti-Semitism persisted so stubbornly over the centuries, even among “civilized” peoples and nations, and the diplomats who represent them? |
Untying the Knot: The Burden of a Get in Orthodox Marriage
By Michele Chabin
Devora is no closer to getting divorced than she was four years ago, when she first sought to dissolve her marriage in an Israeli rabbinical court. Her husband initially agreed to grant her a “get,” a Jewish divorce decree, but he changed his mind after his relatives said he was being “too generous.” |
Jacob Sonderling: A Musical Visionary, From Hamburg to LA
By Cheryl Kempler
A visionary dedicated to expanding Judaism’s horizons through music and art, Rabbi Jacob Sonderling (1878-1964) was a man whose appearance conjured, one of his congregants said, “the way I thought God would look.” |