He always wanted to help his brothers, so he became a rabbi and then a military chaplain. Today, Jeff Ifrah advocates in a more complex arena, defending Orthodox Jews accused of federal crimes.
What it’s like to practice medicine when your patient is the gadol hador
Rav David Lau, the chief rabbi of Israel, resembles his famous father, dresses like him, and now even holds the same high position. But the challenges he faces are vastly different, and in some ways more daunting than those of Rav Yisrael Meir.
“Precocious.”“Gifted.” “Top of his class.” It seems that every Jewish parent can lay claim to a “wise son” or two. But parents of true prodigies — the kind who can play a piano backward, analyze the newspaper before their third birthday, or write sci-fi novels when their friends are just making sense of paragraphs — say that the gift of genius can be a bewildering burden.
From archaeological excavations to giraffe innards, from soft matzah to gourmet grasshoppers — how did the American-born dentist and professor get the world-renowned Yemenite sage on board for their exploits?
If there was one way to characterize Shami (Shlomtzion) Reinman, who passed away last month at age 64, it’s that she was adored by everyone she came in contact with. For Shami, it was a thrill to dress up in a funny costume, to sing and make jokes, to create joy. That love of laughter and simchah defined her, from the time she was a young child to the pain-racked days at the end of her life.
