What Should We Know About Henry Morgenthau Jr.? Originally Published May 6-7, 2022.
Born on May 11, 1891, in New York, into a prominent Jewish family, Henry Morgenthau Jr. studied architecture and agriculture at Cornell University. Around that same time, during WWI, his father, Sr., served as President Woodrow Wilson’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. In Constantinople, Sr. learned about the atrocities the empire was committing against the […]
Are We Allowed to Listen to Shabbat Music While Mourning? Originally Published April 29-30, 2022.
A reader asks, “If this Shabbat is Hod veHadar Instrumental Kabbalat Shabbat, and I am in mourning, am I allowed to go?” The answer basically is that we do not mourn officially during Shabbat, we observe Shabbat. To a large extent, mourning is suspended. There is a tradition of mourners not entering the Shabbat (Friday) […]
What Did the Sofer Do? Originally Published April 8-9, 2022.
Sofer David Haviv came to Beth Shalom on March 23rd to effect repairs on two sifrei Torah. Your correspondent was privileged to watch, inquire, and learn. One repair was to a seam which had separated in Parashat Re’eh, and the other was to a paragraph at the end of Parashat Beshallah, in which a tav […]
What Famous Jewish Individual Was Born April 6th? Originally Published April 1-2, 2022.
Andreas Ludwig Priwin was born in Berlin on April 6, 1929 (or possibly 1930), son of Jack (Jakob) & Lotte (Charlotte Epstein) Priwin, and would become known for his passionate and sometimes vigorous organizing of sounds into beautiful music. (Sometimes his hair seemed to be flying from his head and he seemed to have twelve […]
Sermon? Drash? Devar Torah? Originally Published March 25-26, 2022.
Last week your correspondent was privileged to take in and contemplate a homily by the Reverend Dr. Vincent Campbell, Senior Pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh. Was his homily a devar Torah? While reflecting on the inspiring sermon itself, we also considered how to refer to it. We got to thinking about a bunch […]
From Chironomy to Trope. Originally Published March 18-19, 2022.
Last week we discussed chironomy. That brought us to the question of which came first, the hand signs or the written symbols. We know that we were singing the Song of the Sea, the Decalogue, and some Psalms at the daily service back when services were live at the Temple in Jerusalem. Nehemiah 8:1-8 tells […]
What Is Chironomy? Originally Published March 11-12, 2022.
Have you ever watched a Torah reading for which one of the gabbayim was making hand signals for the reader? You have seen chironomy! The word is derived from the Latin chironomia, which came from the Ancient Greek χειρονομία (kheironomía); from χείρ (kheír, “hand”) + νέμω (némō, “manage”). Chironomy is known to have existed in ancient Egypt (through hieroglyphics), […]
What Famous Person of Jewish Descent Was Born This Week? Originally Published February 11-12, 2022.
Born in Waukegan, Illinois, on February 14, 1894, to Meyer (a shop keeper) and Naomi Emma Kubelsky was Benjamin Kubelsky, who began violin lessons at age six. Once he got a job playing in live Vaudeville theatre, around age 16, he quit school (don’t try this yourselves, young ones) and went to work full time. […]
What Famous Person of Jewish Descent Was Born This Week? Originally Published February 4-5, 2022.
Born in Baltimore on February 10, 1914, to Sadie Hack and Louis Adler, Lawrence Cecil Adler would become well known as a musician and entertainer. By age ten, Larry was the youngest “cantor” in Baltimore. He convinced his parents to let him enroll in the Peabody Conservatory of Music, but he would be dismissed as […]