“There were always choices to make,” recalled the Austrian-born Jew Viktor Frankl after enduring three years in Auschwitz and concentration camps under the Third Reich. Read more
Religion
The Bugs Are Burning/When the Danube Ran Red
As flames enveloped the Warsaw Ghetto, a Polish resident of the city’s “Aryan” side, observing the incineration of his Jewish neighbors, was overheard remarking with Read more
Between My Father and the Old Fool: A Holocaust Memoir
I begin, and end, in the same place: decimation. The title of the appendix of this autobiography, Between My Father and the Old Fool, reads, Read more
If God is Good, Why is the World So Bad?
In my Jewish Perspectives on the Experience of Suffering, I wrote that those who place truth over happiness often get both, while those Read more
On Calendars And the Holocaust
Digitally adjusted image of the calendar Rabbi Yehoshua Neuwirth, author of Shemirat Shabbat Kehilchata, created when he was seventeen years old while hiding in a bunker in Amsterdam during the war… Read more
Advocate for the Doomed: The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald, 1932-1935
Advocate for the Doomed: The Diaries and Papers of James G. McDonald, 1932-1935 Edited by Richard Breitman, Barbara McDonald Stewart and Severin Hochberg Indiana University Press, in association with… Read more
What’s the Truth about . . . Eliyahu HaNavi at the Seder?
MISCONCEPTION: According to ancient tradition, Eliyahu HaNavi makes a furtive appearance at every Pesach Seder. FACT: There is no classical (Talmudic or midrashic) source stating that Eliyahu pays a… Read more
Hold the Knaidlach
Sure, many families observe the minhag of not eating gebrokts on Pesach, but why? Read more
Curious about Kitniyot?
Everyone knows that Ashkenazim don’t eat rice or beans–kitniyot–on Pesach, but many people don’t know why. Interestingly, kitniyot are not and cannot become chametz. So why don’t Ashkenazim eat them… Read more
My Pesach Miracle
It is 1:15 a.m. on Seder night. My fatigue is settling in, along with the brisket. Read more















