Jewish Mourning Rituals: An Overview

From G-dcast.com

The death of a loved one is a very disorienting time, and isn’t something many people think about until it’s actually happening to them. Understanding some of the traditions and the structured periods of mourning that Judaism offers may help provide some support in the grieving process.

Here are a few translations of the words used in the video:

“Aninut” (“אנינות”, meaning “deep sorrow”) - The period from the time of death until the funeral.

“Kriah” (“קְרִיעָה”, meaning “tearing”) - After hearing about a death, immediate family members may tear a piece of their clothing or tear a ribbon provided at the funeral.


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The last of Iowa's small-town synagogues: seven members still praying

Ottumwa’s synagogue was once standing room only on high holidays but now is facing closure in what’s become a common occurence in Iowa and the midwest

Ryan Schuessler for The Guardian

Nobody can remember Ottumwa’s last bar or bat mitzvah.

The consensus between B’nai Jacob Synagogue’s few remaining members is that it would have been 15 years ago, at least. Probably 20. They can, however, remember the last funeral – and the few before.

“Obviously, we’re relatively few people, and we’re not getting any younger,” said Harvey Disenhouse, the de facto rabbi. “I would like to keep the synagogue open as long as possible, but I realize that in 10 years it probably won’t exist here.”

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Communist Jew + Muslim Indian = Affordable Health Care

By Abby Sher for Jewniverse

Q: What do you get when a Muslim Indian and a Communist Jew walk into a bar?

A: An extraordinary leader named Dr. Yusuf K Hamied.

As Drs. Kenneth X Robbins and John Mcleod explain in a fascinating recent article, Hamied is the visionary behind India’s pharmaceutical giant CIPLA – Chemical, Industrial and Pharmaceutical Laboratories – bringing generic life-saving drugs to people all over the world at more affordable prices. (Think antiretroviral cocktails for HIV patients at $1 per day.)

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Shabbat with the Iranian Jews of Tehran

JewishOnline News Exclusive

Annika Hernroth-Rothstein is moved and humbled by her visit to a synagogue in the Iranian capital Tehran, where thousands of Jews still live and pray

    “Hisna’ari me’afar kumi liv’shi big-dei sif-artech ami al yad ben Yishai beis halach’mi korvah el nafshi ge-oloh…”

By the fourth stanza of Lecha Dodi, I can feel the tears streaming down my face, and I quietly surrender to the moment. The woman next to me puts a heavy hand of comfort on my shoulder and we exchange a smile that is equal parts exploration and familiarity.

The century-old Abrishami synagogue is located on the second floor of an unassuming grey building in Palestine Street in north Tehran.

The top floor houses a busy yeshiva and in the basement there is a ballroom-style kosher restaurant often used for the community’s many weddings and barmitzvahs.

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From Groucho Marx to Seinfeld, Jewish jokes dominate top 100 list

By Ben Sales for JTA

New York magazine’s culture section, Vulture, this week published a mega-listicle, “The 100 Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy.” With the help of comedians and historians of comedy, the magazine’s editors compiled the most important jokes ever uttered — from Charlie Chaplin making dinner rolls dance to Louis C.K. dissing his daughter.

And Jews dominate the list.

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Why Playing Chess Is Like Studying the Talmud

Halacha as the Art of Playing Chess – Divine Insanity

By Nathan Lopes Cardozo

There is probably no game as difficult and captivating as chess. Millions of people break their heads over strategies to win this game and spend years learning its ins and outs. It holds them captive as nothing else does. They dream about it and discuss the move of one single pawn as if their lives depend on it. They will follow the most famous chess tournaments and discuss every move of a world champion for days and even years. They replay famous, mind-boggling games of the past, even those that took place as far back as 70 years ago. These chess aficionados try to improve on those games of the distant past, often getting into heated arguments about a brilliant or foolish move that took place 50 years earlier. Thousands of books and tens of thousands of essays have been published on how to improve at playing the game. The rules are set up in the World Chess Federation’s FIDE Handbook. Strategies are developed and tactics suggested; countless combinations have been tried to the point that some typical patterns have their own names, such as “Boden’s Mate” and “Lasker’s Combination”. Mikhail Botvinnik revolutionized the opening theory, which was considered nothing less than a Copernican breakthrough. Famous chess studies, such as the one published by Richard Reti (1921), are revelations of tremendous depth. (He depicted a situation in which it seems impossible for the white king to catch the advanced black pawn while the white pawn can be easily stopped by the black king.)

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China's Search for the Secrets of Jewish Success

In their quest to understand Jews better, popular Chinese authors and bloggers offer up facts and myths about everything from the Talmud to anti-Semitism

By James Ross for Tablet Magazine   

During my first trip to China in the summer of 1985, I visited English Corner in People’s Park in Shanghai one Sunday afternoon. It’s one of the places where young Chinese people used to practice their English with visiting foreigners. Officials from the university where I was teaching in Shanghai escorted me there, and a big crowd quickly gathered to talk with me—a tall, curly-haired foreigner—and pushed closer to shower me with questions.

Some of the questions seemed strange to me (“Do all Americans have AIDS?”) but most were routine, such as, “Where are you from? How do you like China? Are you married? Do you like Chinese girls?” After two months in China, none of this was surprising to me except for one additional question: “What is your religion?”

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