Holiday Features

When Tzvike and Hadas Ophir planted their vineyard in 1986, on the day their eldest daughter Adva was born, they had no plans to make wine. They wanted to grow something alongside their bee hives. The couple was among the first residents of Alon HaGalil, a town in Israel’s North about an hour-and-a-half drive from Tel Aviv. Tzvike grew up in Emek Hefer and Hadas in Kfar Yehoshua, both in farming families. Tzvike was also a second-generation beekeeper.

Prayer notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall in Jerusalem over the past six months have been removed and taken for burial, as is customary every year ahead of the Jewish High Holidays.

Raacheli Fried, a Los Angeles native and resident of East Denver, organized a “Tehillim group,” a Psalms group, 11 years ago. People in the group recite Psalms for many reasons, among them a “complete healing,” a refuah shelemah, for sick people. A Tehillim group may also be organized to pray for a single person, as Essie Fleischmann has done.

When Penny Nisson is in synagogue, she prays with the words in the siddur and the melodies of the liturgy. When she is in her art studio, she prays with her paintbrush. Nisson is a spiritual person who loves and lives Judaism. She and her husband Perry incorporate Jewish ritual into their home and they are regulars at East Denver Orthodox Synagogue. Penny Nissan sits in the front at shul, reading, reciting and hearing the words of prayer.

As Shavuot approaches and the anniversary of the revelation of the Torah looms, it is inspiring to contemplate the teachings of those who mastered the Torah on a level that is beyond us. One such master was the Vilna Gaon, the “Genius of Vilna,” Rabbi Elijah son of Shlomo Zalman (d. 1797).

I like the confluence this year of Shavuot falling during Jewish American Heritage Month (inaugurated on the 350th anniversary of Jews arriving in New Amsterdam) — because the classic Shavuot cheesecake is actually an American invention. You know the one — smooth, dense, a light tang and absolutely decadent. A first bite that, like Proust’s Madeleines, is transportive. 

Every Holocaust survivor has a compelling, usually terrifying tale. Agi Day’s tale began in 1941 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, when she was one year old. When asked how old she was before realizing the gravity of her situation, Day replies: “Four. I’m a child of war, and children of war experience things very differently than children of peace.”

PASSOVER EDITION 5786 SECTION C PAGE 10 By Jessica Russak-Hoffman Some Jews are opting to personalize their Passover liturgy and accessorize it. Shelley Atlas Serber, a graphic designer in West Hempstead, NY, illustrated the Unofficial Taylor Swift Haggadah, which was penned by Na’ama...

The National Library of Israel has received the original version of a modern masterpiece of Hebrew manuscript illumination as a gift from Trudy Elbaum Gottesman and Robert Gottesman.

It’s Tu b’Shevat on Feb. 2 — the birthday of the trees. The Nosher joins with Jewish National Fund to celebrate with a babka made with the “seven species.” To date JNF has planted 240 million trees in Israel, making Israel one of only two countries to enter the 21st century with more trees than it had in 1900.