Opinion

Rosh Hashanah is behind us, Yom Kippur draws near. But what lingers, along with the echoes of the Shofar and the great, portentous reckoning of the Book of Life, are a series of searing television...

DANVERS – It’s just a short stroll from Danvers Indoor Sports to the bridge over Route 114, an area that’s known to walkers and bikers as part of the Rail Trail. But Wednesday evening, Sept....

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, begins Tuesday night, Oct. 4, at sundown. For 25 hours – yes, one extra hour of the day – observant Jews will fast. According to tradition, the holiday was...

Question: What do 1 in 40 American Jews have in common with Angelina Jolie, Christina Applegate, Kayleigh McEnany, Sharon Osbourne, and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Answer: A BRCA genetic variant. Ninety-five percent of all...

All was well on the second floor of the synagogue in my early childhood. My father, praying in the men’s section, was comfortable with Orthodoxy. My mother was one of those spouses who went to...

Can it be a coincidence that as Rosh Hashanah approaches, President Joe Biden convened a Washington summit to examine the effects of hate-fueled violence on American democracy? Can it be simply by chance that less...

Rosh Hashanah begins this Sunday night, and Yom Kippur starts the evening of Oct. 4. You don’t have be an observant Jew to feel the shift. As humans, we are sensitive to all changes in...

A few months ago, some members of our community’s leadership and staff went on a mini-retreat to begin to plan the new year of 5783. Like everyone else, we didn’t know what was going to...

T’shuvah, repentance/return/restitution, is our focus during Elul and our High Holy Day observances. Toch’chah, sincere and productive rebuke, is its catalyst. Toch’chah might come from ourselves; it might come from our community; or it might...