By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer It was September 1993 when Rabbi Judy Chessin started an adult Torah study class at Temple Beth Or in Washington Township. “Although we read the Torah portions weekly, hardly any of us had looked at it with adult eyes,” she recalls. What started

By Rabbi Judy Chessin, Temple Beth Or Planning a wedding these days is a daunting proposition with the current Covid-19 restrictions. Wedding couples wonder if they will be allowed to invite guests or need imprinted masks to go along with their kipot. Only one wedding was designed for just such

By Rabbi Judy Chessin, Temple Beth Or This spring, the coronavirus has created an unprecedented crisis in our lifetimes. Already we were learning to cope with extremism in politics and religion, divisive elections, and antisemitism both here and abroad. Now the Covid-19 virus has become a global pandemic filling many

By Rabbi Judy Chessin, Temple Beth Or Miami Valley rabbis share thoughts on unprecedented U.S. antisemitism There is no doubt that the steady increase of antisemitic attacks in our nation is frightening. Of course, antisemitism is nothing new for Jews. Those of us in our advanced years remember Nazi Germany’s

By Rabbi Judy Chessin, Temple Beth Or Time magazine quoted a prominent politician: “Last week…our nation…cast aside all but the last veil of pretense seeking to make the faith of one religious community a public national referendum in the U.S.” No, this wasn’t a tweet from Congressional Rep. Ilhan Omar,

By Rabbi Judy Chessin, Temple Beth Or “Then Haman said to King Ahashverus: ‘There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s

By Rabbi Judy Chessin, Temple Beth Or At the center of the Torah, the very heart of the book of Leviticus, lies a fundamental teaching of Judaism: “Love your neighbor as yourself (19:18).” Rabbi Akiva concluded that it is the major principle of the Torah (Palestinian Talmud Nedarim 9:4) and

By Rabbi Judy Chessin, Temple Beth Or Our feet “prayed” as 20 Jews from Dayton marched across the famous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. This was just one of many stops on our Etgar 36 Civil Rights Journey in February, on which Dayton high school students participated with me, Temple

By Rabbi Judy Chessin Temple Beth Or, and Chair, Synagogue Forum of Dayton Remember the story of the East Coast rabbi who was invited to serve a Midwestern pulpit? On his very first Shabbat, a fight broke out among congregants who disagreed as to whether they should or should not

By Rabbi Judy Chessin, Temple Beth Or, and Chair, Synagogue Forum of Dayton We cheered when gymnast Aly Raisman wowed the crowd with her floor performance to the strains of Hava Nagila at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. It was with less enthusiasm that critics hailed the 15-year-old Russian ice