My Conversion Prayers Were Answered Through An Orthodox A Cappella Group

By Tamara Reese for Raising Kvell

I love music. I’ve been singing all my life. I belted out an elaborate rendition of “Old Macdonald” in my yellow bathing suit for the cable guy when I was 3 and sang on stage throughout adolescence and college. So much of my life has been set to music; every year a different show, a different song.

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The Birth of Israel

The process by which Mandatory Palestine became Israel

The following article is reprinted with permission from Jewishgates.org.

At the end of World War II, the conflict over Palestine gained momentum.

As early as 1942, the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, had turned to the United States for support of the Jewish state in Palestine.

Even after the horror of the Holocaust, Britain refused to change its policy of allowing no further Jewish immigration. Despite the hundreds of thousands of Jews languishing in Allied displaced persons camps, the British locked the gates to Palestine. British ships stopped ships and forced the refugees into camps they had established on Cyprus. Despite expressions of world outrage, the British interned more than 51,500 Jews who were desperately trying to get to Palestine.

Jewish resistance increased dramatically. The Yishuv gathered weapons for the war they knew was coming. Despite British intervention at every turn, the Haganah [literally “Defense,” the non-governmental Jewish military organization] prepared for military conflict, hiding guns in kibbutzim [collective communities] and training volunteers in orange groves.

Arab terrorism increased. The Irgun and Stern Gang [armed Jewish underground organizations that rejected the Haganah’s policy of moderation and restraint toward the Arabs and the British] retaliated. The Irgun turned its forces against the British as well. In 1944, Menachem Begin became the head of the Irgun. Having escaped from the Nazis in Poland, Menachem Begin was subsequently arrested by the Soviets but survived. When he arrived in Palestine, he declared armed warfare against the British. Many in the Yishuv were angry because they feared that Jewish terrorist reprisals would turn world sympathy from their cause. Begin responded that the world didn’t really care; the Jews would have to kick the British out themselves.

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Counting the Omer, Counting the Milestones

By Rabbi Cara Weinstein Rosenthal for Raising Kvell

“Dear God, how many hours until bedtime?” I mutter from my prone position on the playroom floor as Legos bounce off of my head.

And how long have I been doing this, anyway? I’m home with the kids today, and my husband left for work at 7:30, so it’s been eight hours (not all of them involved being pummeled by Legos, but still).

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What Do You Know About Passover Music?

Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org

Here are eight questions to engage you and your family in the eight days of Passover. Listen to the Passover songs below.

1. The Song of the Sea —the biblical Passover song which the Israelites sang after safely crossing the Sea of Reeds and evading Pharaoh’s army—is unprecedented in the Bible because:
a. It is the first song to appear in the Bible
b. It is the first biblical song to praise God
c. It is the first biblical instance of using musical instruments
d. All of the above

2. In the original Hebrew text of the song Echad Mi Yodea (Who Knows One?), the “who knows two” verse refers to the two tablets of the law. In the Ladino version of the song, called Quien Supiense, to what/whom does “who knows two” refer?
a. Moses and Aaron
b. Two Shabbat candles
c. Esther and Mordechai
d. The first and second Temples

3. The closing Passover seder song, Chad Gadya (One Kid), tells the story of a baby goat, which was eaten by a cat, which in turn was bitten by a dog, etc., until the “Holy One” arrives to put an end to the chain of events. The “one kid” has long been thought of as a metaphor for what?
a. The animals on Noah’s ark
b. The Jewish people
c. The first-born sons of the Israelites
d. There is no metaphor

4. Which 19th-century classical composer created a famous oratorio about the Prophet Elijah?
a. Ludwig van Beethoven
b. Giuseppe Verdi
c. Gustav Mahler
d. Felix Mendelssohn

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The Passover seder: Memories, family, foods, warmth

By Nancy McLaughlin for the news-record.com

Two things that happened during Passover in 1962 are embodied in a piece of green, ornate china that Mitchel Sommers pulls out this time of year.

His grandfather had returned from a trip by ship to Europe after finding two of his brothers who’d been separated after the Holocaust.

Sommers raced home from religion class with the enamel plate he won for his drawing of the family’s Passover meal, called a seder.

The seder plate is a centerpiece of the eight-day Passover celebration, which begins at sundown today.

The plate had particular relevance for Sommers’ family that year.

“From that day on — from when I was 10 — that was the seder plate we used,” said Sommers, who is the executive director of Community Theatre of Greensboro.

Tonight, “I will be sitting with my children and using that seder plate.”

Such memories abound in the Triad. The ritual meal is one of the most celebrated observances on the Jewish calendar, focusing on the story of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt and of the plagues resulting from Pharaoh’s initial refusal to free the slaves. It is a night of song and games, storytelling and interaction, good foods and symbolic bitter foods.

Jewish families share a sense of connection to the seder meals of generations of Jews before them, and those of generations after them, said Rabbi Eli Havivi of Beth David Synagogue.

The seder plate, for example, is made up of six symbolic foods representing thousands of years of history — including salt water, a reminder of the tears slaves shed in Egypt.

A door is also left open for Elijah the prophet, who is to precede the Messiah’s return.

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Though I Dropped Orthodoxy, This Passover I Will Celebrate with My Orthodox Wife & Kids

By Eli Mandel for Raising Kvell

It’s Shabbat afternoon, and the girls are putting on a beauty pageant in our living room. To their 8, 6, 4, and 1-year-old minds, it doesn’t take much imagination to see our modest floor as a full-fledged stage, red carpet and all. The TV has been off for the last 20 hours, in accordance with Orthodox custom.

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Dear Media People: Quit Using the Word “Adoption”

By Amanda Kosior for Raising Kvell

Dear journalists, scriptwriters, and other members of the media: I officially revoke your ability to use the word “adoption,” in any of its related forms.

The lead story on CNN recently (which was not about adoption in any way, shape or form) pointed out not once, but twice, that a couple adopted their son. In one instance, they use the line, “…[She] carried him out of the hospital in her arms, as ecstatic as if she’d carried and birthed him herself.”

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