Features

Jewish Online Resources 10/7/22

By Reporter staff

A variety of Jewish groups are offering educational and recreational online resources. Below is a sampling of those. The Reporter will publish additional listings as they become available. 

The Jewish Theological Seminary will hold the virtual class “Biblical Hebrew Ad…

Jewish Baseball Players: The Jewish baseball circle

By Bill Simons

A manila envelope, containing DVDs, arrived at our hilltop farmhouse, postmarked July 12, just five days before the death of its sender, Bob Ruxin. It was a documentary record of a remarkable August 29-30, 2004, event, “A Celebration of 143 American Jews in America’s Gam…

Off the Shelf: Defining and defying stereotypes

By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

Is it possible to objectively critique films, TV, books and music? In the past, scholars/researchers acted as if they were independent observers whose socio-economic and religious backgrounds had no impact on their opinions. In contemporary times, though, there are…

Off the Shelf: Saints, a living house, ghosts and fantastical moments

By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

Saints, demons and other mythical creatures

When one describes a novel as containing “everything but the kitchen sink,” it’s usually not meant in a positive way. In the case of “The Hidden Saint” by Mark Levenson (Level Best Books/New Arc), that phrase s…

On the Jewish Food Scene: Jews and pizza

By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

My mother said the first time she tasted pizza it was love at first bite. She also claimed that someone in her family’s past must have been Italian. (That doesn’t seem plausible because her mother’s family was from Germany and her father’s from Russia, but …