Jewish family education
Becoming, not overcoming
The Power of Stories. A Series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer Meir Zlotowitz grew up on the Lower East Side, a crowded, chaotic, poor immigrant neighborhood in the 1940s. There, he excelled in his yeshiva and rabbinic studies, although plagued by stuttering that made
The testing point
The Power of Stories. A Series. Jewish Family Education With Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer “During the Second World War,” recounts Rabbi Menashe Feiger, “a Nazi officer came over to my mother and said that he was going to shoot her. ‘Turn around and look away!’ he cruelly
Not-so-random acts of kindness
The Power of Stories. A Series Jewish Family Education By Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer Assisting with the Albanian Muslim refugees in the late 1990s, Israel’s field medical team in Kosovo noted that the adult-focused aid agencies were overlooking the traumatized children. In response to its request for
Attitude adjustment
Considering Creation Series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer Each year, many Jews practice the custom of tashlich, a symbolic “casting away” of sins by tossing bread crumbs, cracked corn, or birdseed into the flowing water of streams or lakes. This tradition finds echoes in
Of Cain and Eden
Considering Creation Series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer You might be surprised to learn that Cain was a spiritual genius, the inventor of an idea practiced by billions of people across time and place, as described by Rabbi Aryeh Fohrman. That’s certainly not the
Time to ‘re-soul’
Considering Creation Series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer On Friday afternoons just before Shabbat, my daughter’s family winds up its grandfather clock. Its chimes can be heard throughout the house. Time to rise. Time to work. Time to carpool. Time to study. Time to
Stories within stories
Considering Creation Series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer The legendary second-century sage Rabbi Akiva grew up in the land of Israel poor, ignorant, and illiterate, eventually becoming a shepherd for a wealthy Jerusalemite. Despite his circumstances, Akiva eventually mastered the Torah, oral tradition, and
The pinnacle of creation
Considering Creation Series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek Commonly referred to as the “king of beasts,”the lion owes its royal nickname in part to a prominent crown-like mane, but even more to its status as an apex predator, one of a select few at the top of the
Seas and skies
Considering Creation series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek Nothing can convey the rich diversity of creatures in the seas and skies quite like swimming in the Gulf of Mexico alongside a languorous whale shark the length of a standard school bus. And then glimpsing a thumb-sized ruby-throated hummingbird
Heaven on Earth
Considering Creation Series Jewish Family Education with Candace R. Kwiatek, The Dayton Jewish Observer In 1928, settlers at Kibbutz Beit Alpha were draining the swamps in the Jezreel Valley when they spotted mosaic shards. Excavations unearthed a fifth-century synagogue complex with a nearly perfectly preserved floor mosaic. The middle panel