The Landys may very well be the most conspicuous family in Rochester, New York. Anita Landy drives around town in a big white bus, custom made to carry her lively crew of five, in addition to three wheelchairs, a ventilator and a service dog named Magic. Nurses traipse in and out of their home 24/7,

  Before PCs, iPads and iPods, there was Rabbi Chaim Goldzweig. An Orthodox Union rabbinic field representative who recently marked his fiftieth anniversary with the OU, Rabbi Goldzweig is known in food manufacturing plants across the globe as the OU’s walking, talking kosher database. In 1960, when Rabbi Goldzweig first joined the OU’s kosher division,

In 1993, nearly twenty years after Shoshana Zakar converted to Judaism, she found out she wasn’t Jewish. Zakar had innocently posted a question to an online Jewish discussion group. The responses ultimately led her on a path that would dramatically change the lives of her and her family. Born in Spokane, Washington, Zakar didn’t have

It is called chesed shel emet—the truest, most selfless act of benevolence one Jew can do for another. Taking care of the physical and spiritual needs of the dead is a chesed without the slightest hope of reciprocity. But two women who regularly dedicate their mornings to performing taharot—the ritual preparation of the met (dead

I was born in America, yet I consider myself a refugee. As a young adult, I fled the secular world for one truer to my soul. Although I am forever grateful for that decision, I sometimes feel like a woman without a country. No matter how hard I try to segue into frum culture, I

I was around twenty years old in my parents’ home, in the middle of a sweltering New York summer night. Twisting from side-to-side, I finally gave in to the restlessness and the heat and descended the wooden stairs to the kitchen, with a drink of cold water on my mind. At the base of the stairs,

Richard Bernstein won’t let anything stand in his way. This Michigan-based powerhouse of an attorney has taken on airlines, airports, universities, the American Bar Association, and the Department of Transportation in both Detroit and New York City. When he’s not winning cases, he’s teaching political science, running marathons (eighteen, so far), competing in Ironman triathlons,

This article has been reprinted with the author’s permission. It was originally in the Beginner’s Service newsletter, “Bereishit”, and also appeared in “More of Our Lives” – part of Sarah Shapiro’s series of compilations, on the Jewish World Review site, as well as Beyondbt.com site. As we walk through each day, we carry the history

With an inescapable pain in her heart, she, bereft of children, chooses to embrace the here-and-now.

This article originally appeared in Jewish Action Magazine WINTER 2010/5771 – Volume 71, No. 2. For more articles, click Jewish Action Magazine or visit: http://www.ou.org/jewish_action To subscribe to Jewish Action Magazine hard-copy and receive a special price offer, click Jewish Action Magazine Subscription, or visit: http://www.ou.org/jewish_action/article/subscriptions_to_jewish_action Ever since Chaya Lipschutz, creator of KidneyMitzvah, answered an