Helpful Advice on Starting and Ending a Period of Mourning

By Bracha Jaffe for MyJewishLearning

Anyone who knows me even a bit also knows that I thrive on social contact and interacting with people. However, during my year of mourning (avelut) for my father, I shied away from social situations. My guideline was: turn down the volume of my social life while turning up the volume of my family life. This gave me time and space to mourn and cherish my memories of my father while pondering my own role as a mother to my four children.

As I neared the end of this long year, a close friend gave me a valuable gift. About a month before the end she said: “Bracha, it’s time to start preparing yourself to step back into life.” Jewish law sets up a designated mourning period of a year for the loss of a parent. When this year comes to a close, we do not extend it as we are instructed by the Torah: “bal tosif” (do not add). When it is time – it is time.

My friend’s wise words made me mindful of this transition and allowed me time to think about how it would feel to socialize again and jump back in to life when the time came. It felt odd and a bit artificial at the beginning, but I was ready and prepared to shed my cloak of silence.

I shared this story with my Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshivat Maharat, Rabbi Jeff Fox, and he pointed out that while the halakha helps enormously to transition into mourning, there are no set laws or customs to transition out of mourning. Indeed, without my friend’s counsel, it would have been much more jarring and difficult for me.

What Reb Jeff said made me realize the function of two beautiful customs created by women for women. These customs “bookend” the year of avelut, and help shape the transitions into and out of saying kaddish.

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As the Jewish Community Goes Gray, Synagogues Adapt To Serve Older Congregants

Baby boomers and seniors are a growing segment of the community, with specific needs for programming, rituals, and accessibility

By Adam Chandler for Tablet Magazine

The Jewish community in America is going gray—even more quickly than the rest of the country.

As baby boomers hit their 50s and 60s, the United States as a whole has gotten older, but Jews have seen an especially notable demographic shift. By the turn of the millennium, the median age of American Jews was 42—far older than the overall American median age of 35. In 2007, 18 percent of American Jews were 65 or older, compared to just 12 percent of all Americans. And thanks to factors like delayed parenting, a record-low birth rate, and the aging of baby boomers, Americans in general—and American Jews in particular—will see these trends continue for years to come.

As Jewish America gets older, synagogues have begun to adapt to serve their older members and attract new ones. The creation of age-specific social groups, senior-themed educational initiatives, and innovations to make both Jewish ritual and synagogues themselves more accessible for an older set constitute just some of the widening efforts to retain and attract an older demographic. Given the complexity and diversity of Jewish populations across the country, the changes are manifesting themselves differently in different places: Some focus on older congregants centers on boomers in their 50s or 60s, for instance, while others shuls are catering to seniors who are 65 and older. How specific communities across the country address their changing memberships may differ, but the broad contours of the shifts under way can be gleaned from looking at shuls that are reprioritizing their outreach efforts.

“Not only do our Jewish values ostensibly instill in us the importance of and responsibility for taking care of the aging in our midst,” said Rabbi Marion Lev-Cohen of Central Synagogue, a Reform congregation in New York, “it’s also an opportunity to enrich the life of the synagogue.”

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Five Secrets for Raising Healthy and Happy Children

By Arthur Rosen for jewishmag.com

Every parent wants his/her children to be happy, healthy and successful children. Many parents succeed but unfortunately there are also many parents who do not succeed and are not happy with the way their children turn out. Who can young parents turn to for good advice? There are so many people willing to give guidance how can you tell who to listen to and who to ignore?

There is no measuring stick like success. See what type of children a prospective mentor has. Do you want children like theirs? If you do then it is a good indication that this person will be a good mentor for you, but if this person's children are not what you want your children to be like, then stay away.

I have raised ten children all of whom are all happy, healthy and successful and content both with their spouses and with their social and work lives. And in addition there is a plus; the plus: they all love and respect me.

What did I do that was different than that of my lesser successful friends and relatives?

I will give you five important pointers that I followed in raising children.

One: Understanding your role as a Parent

Before you can be successful as a parent and have happy, healthy, successful children realize that you have a role to follow as a parent. Whereas many people have children by accident and many who want children and have them, really want them for their own pleasure, they want to be parents.

Being a parent means more than just enjoying the thrill of watching a baby develop into a toddler and then into a child with a personality. It means responsibility and this responsibility means guiding the child on the correct path even if that means loosing time and money. The Hebrew word for parent is horim which is almost the same as raising up harim. The words are related since a parent must raise up his children from being dependent on the parent to becoming a fully independent adult.

What is the correct path? That is a very sticky and tricky question.

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How My Mom Friends Became My Real Friends

By Jen Simon for Kveller

When you announce you’re about to have a child, the first thing everyone wants to do (after wishing you congratulations) is give you advice. And for many people, that advice is to make “mom friends.” It’s essential, I was told, to have someone to share poop and sleep and nursing horror stories with; to know someone who was going through the same challenges I was going through at the same time. It seemed to make sense, but how would I find these elusive “mom friends”?

At the time, I didn’t know anyone else in my city who had kids or was pregnant. What city? Brooklyn.

Brooklyn: Where the moms are known for being crunchy, co-sleeping, vegan-proselytizing, compost-loving and helicopter-parenting, skinny and fashionable, Type A, hyper-achievers. All the stereotypes were extreme (as stereotypes often are) and they all made me nervous. Would I get along with Brooklyn moms? What if I couldn’t make my own organic baby food? What if I didn’t lose all my baby weight in three weeks? Would I like them? Would they like me? Was I entering motherhood or middle school?

After all, the last time I made new friends was when I moved to New York nearly 10 years earlier. All that had required was being young and stupid–drinking and talking to randoms and hanging out. But since I no longer went out or drank, I had no idea how or where I’d meet people. Was it OK to approach a stranger with a baby at the grocery store? And if so, should I do it clutching a sippy cup so it at least felt familiar?

Enter the parenting message board. There are parenting message boards for most neighborhoods in Brooklyn. And, because of the population density, “neighborhood” can mean 10 blocks. And every neighborhood has hundreds of moms, expectant moms, and new moms all posting about meeting other moms. Apparently, they all got the same advice I did: make “mom friends”!

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Judy & Tamir “Jewish Jordan” Goodman

By Jillian Scheinfeld for Raising Kvell

Since retiring from playing professional basketball in 2009, Tamir Goodman, known as the “Jewish Jordan,” has been steadily on the go. Tamir and his wife, Judy, have four kids, founded the non-profit Coolanu Israel, and co-wrote The Jewish Jordan’s Triple Threat together. Individually, Tamir created Sport Strings Tzitzit and partners in the Omri Casspi Basketball Camps, and Judy works for various companies–as well as writes, runs, and cooks.

I got to chat with the couple about playing sports with their kids, writing a book together, and their day-to-day life as parents.

Tamir, what do you miss most about playing professionally?
I was fortunate to live out my dream of playing Division I college and professional basketball without playing on Shabbat. I played until injuries prevented me from physically being able to compete anymore. I love the game and I definitely miss playing it, but I never played just for the love of the game; I always played for the larger purpose of representing Israel and Judaism on the court.

Fortunately, I am able to continue this mission even after my playing days have ended through my Coolanu Israel basketball camps, clinics, development of my basketball products like sport Strings Tzitzit and Zone190, and my recently published book, The Jewish Jordan’s Triple Threat.

Do you ball with your kids? What sports are they into?

As a coach (Tamir) and soon-to-be certified personal trainer (Judy), we both recognize how important it is for kids to be active. With this in mind, we play lots of different sports–not just basketball. Some days we ride bikes, or play catch, or go to the playground. We even play sport games in the house when the weather is too cold to go outside.

Through our family routines, we try to expose our kids to different sports and encourage them to have fun being active, because if they enjoy what they are doing then it is more likely to become a life-long habit. In addition to helping kids stay healthy and happy, sports impart so many important values. Resilience, confidence, respect for others, teamwork, commitment, perseverance, and the value of a strong work ethic are all lessons that kids learn while running up and down the court or playing the field.

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The Only Pregnant Jew in Rural Maine

By Courtney Naliboff for Raising Kvell

I was raised by my secular, humanist Jewish family in the woods of central Maine. We were surrounded by lakes and maples, heard loons at night and occasionally, a moose and her calf wandered into our backyard, much to the consternation of our golden retriever. There were no sidewalks in our town, no traffic lights. My sisters and I played Laura Ingalls Wilder in the backyard until dark. It was isolated and idyllic.

That same isolation became disruptive once we entered the small public elementary school in the next town. We were raised to be proud and outspoken about our heritage, to speak up when teachers talked about Hanukkah in the context of “Christmas Around the World,” to bring in our brass menorahs and wooden dreidels and explain our customs to our classmates.

You may already know how this story goes. Sixth grade boys drew swastikas on their notebooks and showed them to me. “Do you know what this means?” they asked, feigning innocence. My sister’s classroom teacher referred to Judaism as a branch of Christianity, and her classmates called her a “stupid Jew” when she corrected her. A small blonde girl in my class kicked me as I walked up the stairs to the bus, hissing “Jew” in my ear as I fell. In middle school, well-meaning friends urged me to become a Jew for Jesus, to avoid my inevitable damnation. Our bus route took us past hand-painted signs nailed to a grove of trees that read “Jews = Sinners” and “Sinners Damned to Hell.”

I fled, first for Providence and then for Boston, planning a career on stage or in jazz clubs. I attended Yom Kippur services for the first time my freshman year at Brown, and marveled at how I had gone from sore thumb to getting lost in a crowd of other Jewish young adults. I was finally able to visit the delis I had only read about, join a klezmer band, enjoy a seder with my friends. I reveled in the normalcy of it all.

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Everyone Wants to Go to Commie Camp

 In the summer of 2012 conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh labeled Camp Kinderland, "extremist," pointed to its "Communist roots," and accused it of indoctrinating children. Comedian Katie Halper, a Kinderland alum, decided there was just one way to get to the bottom of the allegations: go back to camp.

For one summer Halper followed four nine-year-olds as they experienced Camp Kinderland. They muddle through Yiddish lessons, compete in the World Peace Olympics (Kinderland's answer to color war), stage a protest against police brutality, and explore an in-camp exhibit on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In the resulting documentary, Commie Camp, Halper explores the history of Kinderland, which was founded in 1923 by Jewish activists as a refuge for their children from the tenements of NYC, her family's very personal connection to the camp, and the way that the camp inspires social justice activism in its campers and alumni.

Not everyone is a "camp person" but this hilarious and educational movie appeals to even the decidedly non-rustic among us.

- Tamar Fox for Jewniverse