Today's Life

Aish of the Rockies Rabbi Yaakov Meyer new book collects the Jewish prayers for all kind of occasions, from known to the obscure, including a Prayer for Loneliness, which he jokes could be applied to Broncos fans depending on the season.

Jackson, Wyoming has its first-ever dedicated synagogue and Jewish community center — and the state’s first synagogue building in over 70 years. For over 30 years, Jackson Hole Jewish Community had been meeting in rented spaces. Last August, the non-denominational...

Rabbi Susan Miller Rheins’ passport has a lot of stamps: Eastern Europe, Morocco and Israel, of course.One place draws particular fascination. One place keeps calling her name. Cuba.

Ask Jonathan Lev, executive director at the Boulder JCC, what he is most proud of at his sprawling campus, and the talking points are significant.

Some people return to the places that shaped them simply to reminisce. Rabbi Jordan Shaner is returning to help shape the next generation. Years after sitting in the classrooms of Temple Sinai as a child, he has come home as the congregation’s new rabbinic director of Jewish learning, bringing his journey full circle.

The Kosher Jackson Hole Grill, which will run until mid-August, opened earlier this summer of the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Center of Wyoming, directed by Rabbi Zalman and Raizy Mendelsohn.

It is lunchtime at Ramah in the Rockies, which is considered a sacred time for its camp director. Only a phone call from the supplier of a commercial vacuum cleaner can tear Rabbi Eliav Bock away from his campers. “We just got it, and it’s not the right thing,” says Bock.

On the horizon: a third anniversary since the Hamas horrors of Oct. 7, 2023. Eylon Levy remembers the Israeli war room like it was yesterday. “They needed people to talk to the media, and it was an atmosphere of all hands on deck,” Levy told the IJN. Levy became the English spokesperson for the Israeli government.

The countdown was on. It’s less than two days before HEA’s big fundraiser, featuring Cantor Azi Schwartz in concert, and CEO Steve Levine is unrattled by the relentless demands on his time and attention. “You know the story of the ducks,” Levine says, “where the duck that’s underwater is pedaling like crazy. But just above water, they look calm. Inside, right now, my mind is churning with everything I need to do.”

The patient is young, and squirming. After all, what two-year-old enjoys the ritual of annual inoculations and the needles that go with it. “All right, we’re done torturing,” says Dr. Rachel Fishman. Dr. Fishman happens to be a veterinarian, the medical director of VetCare Animal Hospital. Her patient is a young and feisty terrier named Boci.