menorah

Hannukah before Perestroika

We are en route to Tula, home of the samovar and location of the Tolstoy estate. I am very excited to be going there, having been granted scholar’s rights to access the books in his library, a side benefit of the Hanukkah seminar for Jewish women and girls we have been requested to give there.

Reframing the Chanukkah-Christmas Dilemma

A Creative Strategy involving a Passover Twist

When almost all your congregants raise their hands to the question "Do you have a Christmas tree up this season in your home?" it's quite unsettling for a rabbi. This happened to me back in 1989 in a rural pulpit. The Hanukkah-Christmas dilemma full-blown. What to do, if anything?

A creative program came to mind during a night of troubled dreams. The president of the congregation, ever a supporter of my tendency towards R&D on behalf of the Jewish future, organized everything perfectly to my specifications. And the virtually all of the congregation came.