In general, tefillah is meant to be recited aloud. Although in practice, many prayers are often mumbled in silence, especially in Ashkenazi services, with only the beginning and end chanted or sung, that is done more for time and expediency than necessity. Sephardic services tend to recite all of the words aloud, a practice that creates a different …
אליק נולד מן הים “Elik was born from the sea.” This famous first line of the book With His Own Hands, novelist Moshe Shamir’s memoir of his brother who died in the War of Independence, captures an attitude about Israeli society and history prevalent in the years before and after the rise of the State of Israel. …
I recently read the remarkable first novel by journalist Max Gross, The Lost Shtetl. I came across the book when perusing the list of winners of this year’s National Jewish Book Awards; it also garnered the Jewish Fiction Award from the National Association of Jewish Libraries. The book begins in the “what if” genre: What if …
What Does the Memory of the Shoah Tell Us about Ourselves? Read More »