Religion

According to Dava Schub, the Upper West Side of Manhattan “is a neighborhood full of baby carriages, dogs, families of two and three and five.”

Schub should know: as associate executive director for programming at the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan, she sees 2,000 locals of all ages stream daily in and out of the building at Amsterdam Avenue and 76th Street.

Sixteen years later, I can still hear the sudden gasp, followed by a loud, spontaneous and mournful wail that erupted from the thousands gathered outside 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn when the simple wooden casket carrying the remains of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, emerged from the movement’s headquarters on June 12, 1994, corresponding to the third of Tammuz (this coming Tuesday).

Breaking bread together, literally, helped launch conversations between some of the county’s Muslims and Jews.

In mid-April, several women from the local American Women’s Muslim Association along with several women from Westchester’s Jewish community, gathered at Hartsdale’s Chef Central to share such dishes as biryani, baba ghanoush, kasha varnishkes and noodle kugel.

The dispute now raging over how American Jewry should fund overseas Jewish needs will have at least one important outcome: it will put a serious discussion about Jewish identity on the front burner of the organized American Jewish community (“Jewish Agency, JDC, Stake Claims In Funding Fight,” May 7). Such a discussion is long overdue.

Search for “beef” and you’ll find listings for two restaurants and four butchers. Search for “bacon” and you’ll get no results.
Doesn’t sound like Google? It’s not.

When it comes to projects focused on empowering Jewish women and girls, it’s a good bet that Barbara Dobkin’s name is listed among the supporters. And if it isn’t, you have good reason to ask why not.

The calls come one after another. Eventually, they blur together — the 60-year-old unemployed real estate broker who is behind in his rent; the former headhunter who is struggling to find work; the wife of a recently laid off high-tech professional who can’t pay her family’s utility bills; and the 81-year-old man who needs an affordable place to live because his adult children can no longer subsidize his rent.

Candlelighting, Readings:
Shabbat candles: 8:09 p.m.
Torah reading: Numbers 16:1-18:32; 28:9-15
Haftarah: Isaiah 66:1-24
Sabbath ends: 9:18 p.m.
 

Some Jewish community leaders expressed disappointment over the recent resolution of the Rabbinical Council of America, the leading Modern Orthodox rabbinic association, opposing the ordination of women. By contrast, I was greatly encouraged by the RCA resolution that called for the creation of “halachically and communally appropriate professional opportunities” for women scholars.