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Two of my children attend our local Jewish day school, and we carpool with a family who also has two kids at the school. Spending about an hour in the car together each day, we have become a tight-knit group and the kids (two first graders, a second grader and a third grader) have coined the phrase “carpool family” when referring to one another. As such, it has become a safe place to get ready for the school day, ask questions, discuss a wide variety of topics, get silly and unwind. My co-“carpool mom” and I share similar values and expectations, which is to say we place a high value on safety in the car, respect for differences among people and the tone of the language we use in carpool and at home.

Barack Obama's trip to Israel was a great success and should boost his influence and support there.  So what comes next?  Does he plan to capitalize on that by trying to restart peace negotiations, and do Israeli and Palestinian leaders share that desire or do they just prefer to talk about talking instead of talking about peace?

Seder night is almost upon us and I am dreading it.

On his way out the door Friday, President Obama capped a spectacularly successful visit to Israel by brokering reconciliation between America's two most important strategic allies in the region, Israel and Turkey.

Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu stopped in a trailer on the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport before the President boarded Air Force One so the Israeli prime minister could phone his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to apologize for the attack on a Gaza-bound Turkish ship Mavi Marmara by Israeli commandos in 2010.

This column will address reader’s questions and concerns regarding their child’s special education needs, as well as the services, programs and entitlements available within New York City.

As families gather around the Seder table, they encounter the four children. Some take the position that the four children really represent different aspects of each individual person. I would like to share a story with you that examines the question:  Can our presence at the Seder bring order to our lives and allow the different aspects of who we are to integrate as one person?

Jill Soloway, a hip Hollywood writer/director/producer (“Six Feet Under,” “The United States of Tara”), has become a Jewish activist in the last several years and is having quite an impact on the L.A. community. And it could go national soon.

She spoke at the international conference of the Jewish Funders Network this week in L.A. of how she helped found East Side Jews, an informal and popular group, particularly among young artist types, that seeks to “reinvent” Jewish life and make it “about joy, not sadness.”

For the past 62 years, two seemingly unrelated events in the Jewish world mark the early days of spring in New York City: The Annual Israeli Folk Dance Festival and preparations for the Passover seder.

A new and troubling study is out today showing that 1 in 50 American school children are on the autism spectrum. That is a dramatically higher number than the already high numbers of 1 in 88 children that was released in March of last year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

If you are involved in Jewish camps, can you please take 5-10 minutes to answer this survey on non-profit overnight Jewish summer camps and services for children with disabilities/special needs?