At one time, there were 40,000 Jews in India. Today there are less than 4000, most having made aliyah to Israel in the 1950s after the establishment of the State of Israel and in the face of uncertainty about their fate in the newly independent state of India. On our recent trip to India, we visited synagogues in three principal areas – Mumbai (west coast of central India), Kolkata (east coast of central India) and Cochin (southern coast). Continue reading
B’nai Mitvah families shopped and prepared meals for MESH this week under the guidance of experienced MESHer Sarita Eisenberg. The meal was Sarita’s usual – barbequed chicken, roasted potatoes, and salad. We cooked and did some packing on Monday and then reheated the food and completed the packing on Tuesday.
Cook Sarita Eisenberg and her team whipped up a meal for 50 in just 2 hours!
The team included Sarita’s usual crew of Lou Hammerman and Linda Ariel joined by Sarah Steindel, Risa Bernstein, and Carol Rothman. Also helping were Risa’s son Coby and his partner Sam Benke, visiting from Germany (putative prizewinners for the longest distance traveled to help with MESH).
Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova.
As we all gather this morning, in the midst of a meaningful fast and without that morning coffee I know I am missing right now…I have the privilege of talking to you about, what else? Food…and housing, and the basics of the blessings of what it means to have enough…
And thinking about our neighbors and friends who don’t. Continue reading
Pesto for me is seasonal – a summer treat using basil from my garden. It can be frozen to have year-round (although I’ll admit that, when I’ve done this, I’ve usually forgotten that I have frozen pesto and it got too old to use).
I’ve been making pesto since my kids were little, although they initially needed a bit of incitement to eat food that was green. I was teaching an evening class in the city once a week and Lou let the kids stay up until I got home. They would watch me eat, not infrequently begging food from my plate. One night my meal included pesto – the kids gobbled it up and I announced that they were no longer to tell me that they would not eat green food. Continue reading
For this last MESH of the year, cook Sarita Eisenberg and her team of Lou Hammerman and Linda Ariel were joined by Risa Bernstein and Carole Rothman. Menu was our usual barbecue chicken legs and roasted potatoes with a side of salad, cookies and fruit cups.
Dear Shomrei Community,
The last Shabbat Shabbat Your Way before the summer is on May 31.
I want to thank everyone who participated in Shabbat Your Way this year and especially everyone who opened up their homes. We hope you’ll continue to host people over the summer and we’ll officially pick up in the fall.
And please share your Shabbat story with us at email hidden; JavaScript is required.
We were a small group of Jews traveling in Uzbekistan, a predominantly Muslim country. Our tour group had originally included nine others who dropped out of the trip after war started between Israel and Hamas, because they did not feel comfortable being in a Muslim country. However we felt safe and entirely welcome. (All these people wanted to take picture with us!)
These reflections were written by participants in Rabbi Julie’s Pre-Passover workshop, Seder During Wartime, in April 2024. Continue reading
We spent two Shabbatot in Uzbekistan.
The first Shabbat was in Bukhara. The men in our group attended Friday services (we had been told earlier in the day by the Rabbi that women do not attend services on Friday).
Afterwards we all made our way for Shabbat dinner to the home of a Muslim family who specializes in cooking kosher meals for Israeli tour groups. Continue reading