Fresh cheese is a staple in classic Shavuot foods, traditionally wrapped in a soft, egg-like blintz that is then fried lightly in butter. Variations on this theme can keep things interesting and expand your kitchen craft. Cheesecake is another way to expand the joy of this holiday. more

THURSDAY MAY 22 LUNCH & LEARN with Rabbi Shalom Axelrod of YI Woodmere. Traditions Restaurant, 302 Central Ave., Lawrence. 12:30-1:30 pm. $12 lunch. Alan Stern 516-398-3094. KABBALAT HATORAH in Modern Times, with Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt. 9 pm. DRS High School. 700 Ibsen St., Woodmere. 516-733-0299. more

This Shabbat will witness the beginning of the reading of the fourth book of the Torah, Bamidbar, sometimes translated as the Book of Numbers but never as the Book of the Desert (which is what bamidbar means). more

The Hewlett-Woodmere and Lawrence school district budgets were approved by comfortable margins in Tuesday’s election. more

Singing, dancing and 300 celebrants welcomed a new Torah scroll to Valley Stream on Sunday, dedicated by Shlomo Cohen in memory of his parents Sara and Tuvia Cohen to Chabad Outreach Center. more

Three thousand years ago, King Solomon wrote in the book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) that there is a time and a season for everything under the sun. “A time to sing, and a time to dance, a time to rejoice and a time to mourn, a time to reap and a time to sow.” And, like all things, there is a time to ask questions and a time to remain silent." In the Israeli army, there is a type of question known as a she’elat kitbag or kitbag question. more

The beginning of our new book informs us of the order of travels, and how the people encamped around the Mishkan (Tabernacle). Those most immediately around the Mishkan were the Levite families, whose jobs consisted of carrying the different parts of the Mishkan. more

Silence could be heard throughout the rooms of the 9/11 Memorial Museum. Sadness was written all over the faces of the visitors who had seen the World Trade Center fall to the ground. Rescuers of September 11 were permitted to enter the museum, prior to the opening to the public. more

Yossi Ron, the last remnant of his family, embodies the Jewish story of exile, destruction and rebirth. Ron is one of the 47 orphans from Kfar Etzion, a town in the hills of Judea that was destroyed by the Arabs in Israel’s War of Independence, its defenders massacred by the marauding Arabs. more

“We live in a zman [time] of great choshech [darkness],” Rabbi Yankel Horowitz told a parking lot full of Lag B’Omer celebrants outside the White Shul on motzei Shabbat. Then he ignited a bonfire that lit the Far Rockaway night. more