On a recent sunny Sunday, Rabbi Mendy Cohen gathered with about 30 kids and teen volunteers outside Congregation Beth Hamedrosh in Wynnewood to transmute goats' horns into shofars. Decked out in safety goggles and workman's gloves, the rabbi from Chabad of the Main Line helped the young people measure the horns, cut them by hand with a hacksaw and drilled...
Soccer standout Sarah Friedman has visited Israel just once, speaks no Hebrew and admittedly doesn't closely follow the news of the Middle East. But last week, the 22-year-old University of Pennsylvania graduate officially made aliyah. She was motivated less by Zionism than a chance to play professional soccer. The attacking midfielder is set to suit up for ASA Tel Aviv,...
On a day when legislative redistricting and a parking lot tax were on the agenda, Philadelphia City Council briefly turned its attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- a rare but not unprecedented occurrence. The council on Sept. 15 overwhelmingly passed a resolution opposing the Palestinian efforts to seek support for unilateral independence at the United Nations. The measure essentially expressed...
On the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, a West Philadelphia imam told several hundred people gathered for the city's official memorial that the horrors of that day had alerted him to the need for interfaith engagement. "It was a wake-up call," Imam Anwar Muhaimin of the Quba Institute said as he stood at the podium with...
The first time Jews and Afropop met in popular culture, Paul Simon was flying out to South Africa to lay down some tracks with the male choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo about visiting Elvis Presley's mansion in Graceland. Like Simon, Fool's Gold has done a bit of globetrotting as well, playng New York and Paris, and now they're heading to...
Sivan 13, 5773
