The dishes they eat, family traditions, and where Portlanders can find holiday food All sharing options RoshRosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is a time for celebration, reflection about the previous year, and intention setting for the year ahead. Families gather to eat apples dipped in honey — signifying a sweet new year — and blow…
We all have learned the facts behind the holiday of Rosh Hashanah. That the holiday begins on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, which falls this year on Sept. 9. Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of the world and marks the beginning of the Days of Awe, a…
The Jewish High Holidays and Sukkot have come and gone and this year, unlike any other, posed new and significant challenges for all of us in different ways because of COVID-19. Yet it also offered new opportunities. So, on the spiritual report card of life, how did we do? In years past, we took for…
PHOTO: Glenn Coblens blows a shofar. Photo by Ken Klein The shofar is arguably the most powerful musical instrument in the world. Its mighty blast brought the walls of Jericho tumbling down. The long blast of the shofar accompanied Moses as he ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Torah. Mentioned often in the Torah and…
Oregon offers a plethora of honey flavors to fulfill the custom of eating apples and honey to usher in a sweet New Year. “Raw honey is inherently kosher,” says Oregon Kosher Executive Director Tuvia Berzow. Bees, like all insects, are not kosher, and the laws of kashrut say nonkosher animals cannot produce kosher products. However,…
Technology is a tool, and we get to choose how we use it. By Rabbi Ken Brodkin Last August, my family spent a weekend at the Oregon coast. I was scheduled to be back in the office on Monday, but we booked a couple of extra nights thinking I could get online and get some…
By Teddy Weinberger On Thursday morning Sept. 20, I will open my newspaper and see the traditional day-after Yom Kippur picture: one of Israel’s busiest highways completely deserted during the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Indeed, among the secular Israeli public, Yom Kippur is often thought of as “Bicycle Day,” since the absence…
(Note: Jewish holidays start at sunset the evening before the first day of the holiday) Rosh Hashanah Sept. 10-11, 2018 On Rosh Hashanah the sound of the shofar announces the arrival of the High Holy Days, or 10 Days of Awe that stretch from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah celebrates the creation of…
“Knock knock!” “Who’s there?” “Me.” “Me who?” A silly childhood joke, right? Perhaps, but it could also be viewed as one of the most compelling questions of all time. Because, if asked differently, the question “Me who?” is actually: “Who am I?” Since the beginning of time, we have been attempting to understand and articulate…
A coalition of Jewish groups has endorsed the idea of restoring and transferring the ancient and largely forgotten Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana L’Ma’aser BeHeima (New Year’s Day for Tithing Animals) into a day devoted to considering how to improve our relationships with animals. The holiday occurs on the first day of the month of…
