We run a small non-profit in Toronto taking donations of unwanted Judaica to pass onto folks who want to rehome it. This small ceramic object came in our most recent batch of donations, and we have no idea what it could be.

It's about three inches square, clearly handpainted, with a metal frame surrounding an opening on one corner. The bracha (עַל נְטִילַת יָדַיִם) implies a connection to handwashing, but we can't figure out what purpose it's supposed to serve. Cup stand? Just a pretty thing? Please help - we've stumped multiple rabbis.

For Jews by Choice, what is your Hebrew name and what was the thought process behind why you chose it? Just curious!

I decided that it's time. We need a place to rate our inflight kosher meals, and provide heads up when airlines are especially good (or otherwise) with Jewish passengers.

Hopefully, rating the best meals well will entice the majority of caterers (who we all love complaining about) to up their game and give us edible, sensitivity-friendly plane food, especially on long haul flights.

I'm very glad that my first posts on the site are largely positive, including, IMO, the very top tier of kosher food available in the sky!

Please join and contribute at koshertravel.app - it's 100% free and I have no intention of pay-walling it, ever. It's a service that will rely on contribution, and I hope that people will both contribute and benefit!

On the map it's really way far out there in the far east

Hi everyone,

I am 28yr old, raised in a Reconstructionist synagogue and I am looking at colleges in Cleveland and I have heard there is a large Jewish population. I have also heard that Cleveland is great for late 20's single adults. All of this has made Cleveland one of the top places on my list to move. My extended family has also become interested in Cleveland and I have 2 young nieces that my family would like to raise around other Jewish children. I heard recently that Cleveland is now mostly older orthodox Jews and that there are very few children and that any children there are, are orthodox. I am wondering if that is true and what the Jewish community is like in Cleveland, both for a 20 something adult woman and for raising a family.

Thank you!

Hi all! I'd like to share with you a recent project of mine and get your feedback.

It's https://letzyiddish.com/, a website/app that teaches you Yiddish through a variety of content, focused on the best (in my opinion) classical jokes, sayings, stories, and songs.

The first thing I should say is that letzyiddish is not really for absolute beginners, as there are already Yiddish resources for such people on YouTube, Duolingo, etc. I'm assuming that the user can read Yiddish, more or less (there is transliteration for every word), and can string together a few basic sentences. The site has a unit called "topics" that covers important phrases and vocab for a bunch of common scenarios, but this is not really an intro course.

Letzyiddish is inspired by graded reader apps that have a curated selection of texts that have been annotated, together with dictionary, spaced-repetition study, audio, search, etc. I'm thinking of Du Chinese for, well, Chinese, or Readlang for Spanish, German, etc.

The site is built with AI assistance, but the curation of content is my own, as is the layout, the recordings, etc. Crucially, no texts have been written by AI --- they all come from old Yiddish sources (often over a century!), and AI was used to annotate. The recordings are in my own Russian/Chabad accent, which is fairly close to the YIVO standard.

Even if you don't speak Yiddish and are just interested in the jokes and expressions, I invite you to have a look. I always thought of myself as a collector of classic Yiddish jokes, but I discovered many new ones in the creation of this site.

Are there any Jews, religious or otherwise, in Southern Colorado? Just seeing how many of us there are down here! 😊

At least one Rabbi, Rabbi Ephraim ben Shimshon, seemed to have a rather literal interpretation of this line from Jacob's Blessing and believed that Benjamin, and presumably his descendants, would or could turn themselves into wolves.

Another explanation: Benjamin was a “predatory wolf,” sometimes preying upon people. When it was time for him to change into a wolf, as it says, “Benjamin is a predatory wolf,” as long as he was with his father, he could rely upon a physician, and in that merit he did not change into a wolf. For thus it says, “And he shall leave his father and die” (Gen. 44:22)—namely, that when he separates from his father, and turns into a wolf with travelers, whoever finds him will kill him.

Since we are approaching Halloween, this seems to be an appropriate time to talk about the weirder and wilder parts of Judaism, since we were no more immune to a belief in magic and superstition than other people, that existed and for the most part seemingly disappeared in the sense that most Jews today really don't know much about them and if they do don't follow them at all, and I think this true across the Halacha observant spectrum from Ultra-Orthodox to Secular Jews, while the supernatural traditions in other religions, especially other ethnoreligions like Shinto, remain more prominent. So what led to the wilder and weirder parts of Judaism falling into the background and becoming irrelevant in your opinion?

Hi,

I’m an Orthodox Jew thinking of relocating my family to the 5 towns. I understand it’s mainly orthodox and that’s one of the reasons I’m looking to move there specifically.

My question is what’s the difference between the towns in terms of social life, community life, orthodoxy, and aesthetics?

I need help deciding which town I should look at.

Thanks everyone in advance