Articles

In November of 2018, while I was visiting my family in Los Angeles, my cousin’s camp burned down in a wildfire, and all that was left standing was the menorah on the hill. I was inspired to write an article for the Temple Beth Shalom monthly newsletter, the Scroll, about that menorah and the lessons that it can teach us about Chanukah.

In the wake of the social unrest of the summer of 2020, I was inspired to write an article about what Judaism might have to say about the issues that were facing and continue to face our country. In this article for the Temple Beth Shalom Scroll, I used classical Jewish texts to think about how we as Jews could respond to what was going on.

I have always been interested in cooking and baking. During the pandemic shutdown, I began trying all sorts of new recipes and posting the results on line, much to my congregants’ delight. For some of the Jewish holidays, I recorded myself making traditional holiday treats and posted the videos on the Temple Beth Shalom Facebook page where people could comment and ask questions about the recipes. To that end, for the December 2020 issue of the Temple Beth Shalom Scroll, I decided to write about the history of one of my favorite Chanukah treats, the sufganiyah.