Weekly Torah Portion - Balak

One of the main stories in this week’s Torah portion, Balak, is the story of Balaam and the donkey. In short, Balaam works for Balak who orders him to go and curse the Israelites. Balaam rides his donkey and along the way the donkey speaks to Balaam. The donkey is able to see [...]

Her Music Sings

Naomi Shemer, Israel’s composer, died during Shabbat. She composed famous songs like Yerushalayim she Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold), Lu Yehi and the musical setting of Rachel’s Kinneret to name just some of the most famous. You can read about her life a number of places, including Jerusalem Post. May her memory and her [...]

Pride in Israel

Today as I prepare for Shabbat, I take pride in Israel and especially in the support within and for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in Israel. Today was the Tel Aviv Pride Parade as reported in Ha’aretz. Supporting this segment of our Jewish world is important, for they face much discrimination - sometimes [...]

New email address for blog

Boker tov (good morning). I have a new email address for this blog, shalom.blog@gmail.com - I look forward to speaking with you there if not in the comments!

Weekly Torah Portion - Chukkat

This week’s Torah portion is Chukkat and covers Numbers 19:1-22:1. In this parashah, the Israelites get instruction on the red heifer (more to come on this), Miriam dies, Moses hits a rock when G-d instructs him to speak to it, and Aaron dies as well.
What do we do with the odd rituals of the red [...]

Weekly Commentary - Korach

This week’s Torah commentary is from Kolel and discusses parashat korach.
Go and study!

New Israeli Blog

Through blogger, I came across a blog called Jerusalem Wanderings. The blogger includes many posts of how the author is living a life of coexistence and peace.
Read and Enjoy!

Israeli Teens and Reading

Shalom. While reading Ha’aretz this morning to stay current on the events in Israel, I read an interesting story on the newspaper habits of Israeli teens. About 80% of Israeli teens read the newspaper daily. Wow! The study is also interesting for what it finds about the reading habits of Ultra-Orthodox, [...]

Weekly Torah Portion

This week’s Torah portion is Shelach Lecha and you can read a drash on it titled “Tying the Fringes to Be Like Caleb & Joshuah (note this is a PDF file).

Learning and Networking

Shalom! Sorry it has been so long since I’ve posted. I was away at a conference event this past Sunday learning and networking (with travel before and after) and am still swamped with work.
As you are probably aware, some complicated and significant things are taking place in Israel right now, and I hope [...]

Give Tzedakah Online - for Free

One of the things that I like about the internet is that amongst the commerce, the blogs, news, corporate and organizational sites on the web are sites where just by clicking a link, you can give tzedakah (a Hebrew word meaning righteouness, the word we use instead of charity) while online. Of course, there [...]