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A few months ago a very idealistic and dedicated woman in our community contacted me as she was preparing to give a tour of our Shul to a Modern Orthodox day school from a nearby suburb. She only asked for some media for her tour (photos of the past rabbonim), but I gave her a […]

I have been going through the book “The Shofar”, by our Kehilla’s ba’al toke’a, Rabbi Bentzion Ettlinger. It is a good read and a carefully written kuntres, as he describes it within. It is also comprehensive, and thorough, and bears the mark of years of experience. (I found the discussion about eating before Tekios most fascinating.) He does mention our minhogim, […]

Because I haven’t written in a long time and it is almost Purim, I want to put a few thoughts together. This year we observed Rav Schwab’s Yahrzeit on Purim Katan as it was in the year he passed away. Elsewhere I wrote a Remez beween Rav Schwab’s name and Lag B’omer (which is alluded to in the Rema […]

Tonight, in the neighborhood in which I now live, there will be bonfires to celebrate the Hilula Derashbi.  As children, we never heard about the Rabi Shimon element of Lag BeOmer. It was all about the talmidei Rabi Akiva and the bow & arrow games. Today ideas of kabbalah and chasidus have become more widely known and as we will become […]

A friend alerted me to a post on the website forum.otzar.net that was written this week. I have it translated below and a link to the recording of a sweet and excellently executed documentation of this tune! Enjoy and have a happy Chanukah. Maoz Tzur – an ancient melody for the holy genius Rabbi Yaakov […]

  Recently, I had the great pleasure of reading an anthology of the smaller works of the famed popular historian, Mr. Hermann Schwab z’l. “Hermann Schwab. Historian of German Jewry: His Life and Shorter Works” is distributed by Feldheim Books. For full disclosure, I will mention that for a long time I have had a […]