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Earlier this year, I had the amazing opportunity to watch Stolpersteine, or stumbling stones, be placed on the streets of Berlin in honor of Malie, Chaim, Ida, and Peppi Landsmann. The Landsmann family lived in Berlin from 1921 until their deportation in 1939 to a ghetto in Chrzanow, Poland. In 1942, the ghetto was liquidated, and the family was murdered at Auschwitz.
The scale of the Holocaust was incomprehensible, but it was the details, the bales of hair, the piles of glasses worn by Jews just like me, the faint echoes of lives once lived, that was truly shattering.
During Hanukkah, our homes become microcosms of the Temple. For each of the 8 nights, we gather together, light candles, and eat foods fried in oil to remember this miracle. These acts of community and ritual strengthen our resolve to bring light into the world, and to celebrate our collective resilience and unity.
Editor’s note: An aspect of the Thanksgiving story that strongly resonates with many people in the Jewish community is the experience of immigrants trying to create a home in a new place. This Thanksgiving, we spoke to a student whose story shows the lasting impact of seeking a new home and a new future. I […]
Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, is recognized as the saddest day on the Jewish calendar. It is a day of mourning for tragedies across Jewish history, most particularly the destruction and loss of the first and second Temple and Jerusalem nearly 2,000 years ago.
A piece of Jewish history has been uprooted from Amsterdam and planted in Iowa City. One sapling grown from an old chestnut tree — which stood outside of the secret annex where Anne Frank wrote her famous diary — was planted at University of Iowa.
