Thursday, March 28, 2024 -
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Holiday Features

Passover 5781: How is this year different?

The IJN asked Talia Haykin, Ellyn Hutt, Diana Kaplan and Maxwell Rotbart to share memories of Passover 2020, expectations for Passover 2021 (just one day away) and...

Mexican Passover food mashup

By Sybil Sancez PACHUCA, Mexico — Like other Jews around the world, Alegra Smeke turns to traditional foods during Passover. For her that means Syrian dishes with a...

Purim 2020 was a lugubrious Jewish turning point; little change in 2021

NEW YORK — In any other year, the mask-decorating party planned for later this month at Congregation Beth El Ner Tamid in Broomall, Pa. would make perfect sense:...

Chanukah is coming just when we need it most

CHANUKAH 5781 SECTION E, PAGE 11 Just saying the word “Chanukah” brings smiles. As does conjuring up the sight of candles ablaze and the sounds of boisterously...

Sukkot in WW I-era Russia

By Chen Malul, National Library of Israel Ditches at the entrances to all of the homes. Opened roofs. The year 1916 appears under the photograph featured on an aged...

Spiritual lessons from COVID-19

coronavirus pandemic has challenged each and every one of us in different and unprecedented ways. Rosh Hashanah, the start of a new year, is a natural time for...

Persian Rosh Hashana seder

ROSH HASHANAH EDITION 5781 SECTION D PAGE 9 By Donna Maher NEW YORK — Twenty-twenty has been an incredibly rough year. We could all use a fresh start, so it’s...

Sweet Shavuot in Saloniki

By Zack Rothbart, National Library of Israel “Saloniki’s Jews . . . eagerly awaited the arrival of the Shavuot holiday . . . They especially loved and cherished it...

What is a goat (‘Chad Gadya’) doing at the seder?

By Amit Noar For most modern secular readers not well versed in the enigmatic midrashic style of our Sages, the Passover Haggadah is a rather abstruse text. The decision...

Beijing Haggadah — in Hebrew, English and (some) Chinese

By Alan Grabinsky BEIJING — Unlike Hong Kong or Shanghai, which received Jewish emigrants fleeing from WW II, Beijing does not have a robust Jewish history. In the...