Category Archives: Judaism

Central Holocaust Victims Database

Yad Vashem (Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority) recently launched The Central Holocaust Victims Database. This database lists about 3 million names of the 6 million Jews (and 11 million total) murdered by the Nazis. You can search for information about friends and family members or submit information about friends/family for the database. I put in the parents and siblings of a dear friend, rabbi and teacher of mine (who is the only person who grew up and lived in the town during the time the Nazis made it a ghetto to have survived – the rest of the town was mass murdered) and found his family. This is a valuable resource for remembering, honoring and educating.

May we learn the price of hatred and strive to remove hatred from the world.

New Link – RAC Blog

I’ve added a new link to the list of Jewish Blogs on the left, RAC Blog. The RAC stand for the Religious Action Center. What is it? “The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC) has been the hub of Jewish social justice and legislative activity in the nation’s capital for over 40 years. It has educated and mobilized the American Jewish community on legislative and social concerns as an advocate in the Congress of the United States on issues ranging from Israel and international religious freedom to economic justice and civil rights, to international peace and religious liberty.”

Read their blog to stay current on how events in Washington impact us as Jews.
Go, learn, be active and change the world!

A Prayer for Thanksgiving

As we gather with friends and family for Thanksgiving, I invite you to add an payer to the Divine at the beginning of your meal. (Source is On the Doorposts of Your House, publsihed by the Central Conference of American Rabbis.)

Creative Source of all being, from You come our blessings from day to day and from year to year. The towering mountains and the shaded forests, the abundant streams and fruitful earth are Your gift to us. May we preserve this gift for our children, our grandchildren and all God’s children, that they, too, may give thanks for the blessings that will be theirs.

For this land so richly blessed, we raise our voice in thanks. Your children have come to these shores from many lands in quest of liberty and new life. Many have been pilgrims to this western world. Here they found a safe haven, soil on which to prosper, and the opportunity to outgrow old fears and superstitions. For our country for its freedom promised, attained, and yet to be enlarged, for the richness of its natural blessings, and for a growing harmony that we pray will ever increase among its citizens, we give thanks.

God of justice and right, inspire all who dwell in our land with loyalty to the ideals of its founders. Give us wisdom and strength to labor for its well-being, on the firm foundation of justice and truth. Fill us with the spirit of kindness, generosity, and peace, that this land may be a beacon of light to many peoples. Return home our nation’s sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, speedily and safely.

We praise You, Eternal God, Sovereign of the universe, for You cause bread to come forth from the earth.
Ba-ruch ata Adonai Ehloheinu mehlech haolam, hamotzi lehchem min haaretz. Amen.

What does Judaism say about Thanksgiving?

Happy Thanksgiving.

Today citizens across the U.S.A. gather with friends and family to celebrate Thanksgiving. The roots of the holiday are told to extend back to the colonial period of this country and a peaceful meal shared between the Native Americans (whose diverse and vibrant society and culture lived across this land for centuries before the Europeans came) and the early colonists. There is some historical evidence that the first Thanksgiving in early October of 1621 around the time of Succot, our fall harvest festival. The consumption of fall foods, at a table filled with family, friends and guests both echo Succot. (A harevest festival in which we sit in booths decorated from the harvest, consuming harvest foods with ushpizin, guests joining us.)

A number of articles by colleagues and scholars detail these similarities.
Thanksgiving and Its Jewish Roots by Rabbi Alfredo
The first Jew to come to North America
Finding a Jewish Thanksgiving (Resources for all ages)
UPDATED link – Thanksgiving Roots in Jewish Holiday

What does Judaism say about celebrating secular holidays?
Overview to Secular Holidays
Is Thanksgiving Kosher? A Look at Jewish Law

Now for some Kosher Recipes for Thanksgiving
Recipes from About.com
UPDATED link – Give Thanksgiving a Jewish Flavor

May your celebration of this day be filled with love, joy, good food and friendship.
(see the next post for a prayer to share at your table)

A Prayerful Context to Voting

Many of us will be praying for election results to be as we hope! The choices we make will have consequences on local, state, national and international arenas.

Velveteen Rabbi has a wonderful posting on the sacred potential of voting. I strongly encourage you to read it. She ends with a prayer by Rabbi David Seidenberg. I will be taking it with me to the polls tomorrow morning and will recite it between voting and working the morning shift at my polling place. (For a local issue, although I will also keep my eyes open for people who are being disenfrachised from voting in this swing state.)

Here is a link to the prayer on Velveteen Rabbi’s site. Or, if you’d rather have a link to a PDF of the prayer click here.

VOTE!