Hanukkah
5 min read
Eric Kimmel’s Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins (available at every JCC library) has become a beloved Hanukkah tale — whimsical, a little eerie, and profoundly Jewish at heart. Hershel, a wandering Jew, wanders upon a Jewish village on Hanukkah and notices that no one is lighting Hanukkah candles. The villagers tell him that a group […]
Hanukkah
4 min read
The small flames of the menorah have lit up Jewish life for centuries. Why has Hanukkah captured the Jewish heart, becoming one of the most beloved Jewish holidays? To understand, let’s explore three layers: the historical, the spiritual, and the personal. 1. The Historical: A Battle of Cultures Maimonides writes that the Greeks attempted “to […]
First Night: The Background of Hanukkah Over 2,000 years ago, around 200 BCE, the Land of Israel was part of the Syrian-Greek Empire (known as the Seleucid Empire). In the middle of his reign, the Seleucid king, King Antiochus III, began imposing heavy taxes on the Jewish People. His successor intensified the oppression, determined to […]
The moment the retired doctor’s head crashed into the net, snapped backwards and sent him flying through the air, he knew he had suffered a spinal cord injury. It was the first time Dr. Bill Silvers, then 72, ever had played pickleball and just 10 minutes into his first game. He felt no pain, but time […]
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How to rise above society’s impossible standards of beauty and attain real self-esteem.
