As the final lines of Megillat Esther were read in shuls across the country, kosher distributors, manufactures and grocery stores did not hear the words “He sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace for all their descendants,” but rather the fusillade report of pistols signaling the official start of the Passover shopping season. more

Dear Aviva, With Purim now behind us, I am starting to get my usually Post-Purim/Pre-Pesach anxiety attacks. I get so nervous and panicked about having to clean and cook and organize for Pesach, and every time I think, of all that I have to do, I get so overwhelmed. I either don’t do anything at all or take my anxiety out on my family by yelling about some trivial thing. How do I stay calm these next few weeks? I wish I could wiggle my nose and have Pesach get done for me. more

Local events for the week of April 1, 2011 more

There is affordable housing and day school tuition breaks, but can South Bend, Indiana, really coax a young Jewish family to leave the comforts of New York? “I thought I’d be living in New York for the rest of my life,” said Moshe Gubin, 34, a former resident of Kew Gardens Hills. more

In 1992 I approached Elisha Peleg, the sanitation Commissioner of Jerusalem, to help clean a Palestinian garbage dump on an obscure part of the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives. He enthusiastically consented and gave my colleagues and me, one thousand garbage bags, a steam shovel, a sanitation truck, and a platoon of soldiers to protect us. more

Kurt Flascher once marched with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. aiming to promote civil rights in the South. So when a Jewish organization called him about a protest rally in Borough Park on March 27, he offered them milk and cookies. But it was in jest, because the rally was outside his first-floor window, and the subject of the rally was Flascher himself. more

Often it is said that our community is moving to the right in its religious observance, but there is one missing aspect of this rightward shift. Throughout the centuries, Jewish communities have admirably maintained their unity through batei din, local rabbinic courts that settled civil matters between individual Jews. Their judgment was final, and it was anathema to ignore or disrespect their rulings. more

The family van can be quite a workhorse, between its owner’s commute to work, shuttling the children to after-school activities, and taking the grandparents to their doctor. The emotional toll of parenting and taking care of elderly parents was addressed by social worker Harriet Blank at a March 26 presentation sponsored by National Council of Young Israel and Ohel Children’s Home & Family Services. more

Calendar for the week of March 24 - 30 more

I remember visiting my grandparents when I was 14. They live in Hong Kong. We met in the airport and headed to baggage-claim. At the conveyer belt, my fifteen-year-old brother Jonathan pulled out his assigned-reading book, which he was pressured to finish before the weekend. more