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From “This Is Your Life” By Richard Friedman  Though dramatically different in substance, separate online Holocaust programs in Louisiana on Jan. 10 highlighted the importance of remembrance and resilience as two organizations recounted and reflected on vastly different Holocaust-era lives. The programs featured the adult […]

Several years ago, the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute introduced “Journey of the Soul,” a course discussing what Judaism says about life, death and the afterlife. Rabbi Mendel Ceitlin from Chabad in Metairie, who taught the course back then, said “it became the number one Jewish […]

Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate in Georgia Raphael Warnock (left) and Jon Ossoff. Source: Facebook/Jon Ossoff. By Richard Friedman Some are licking their wounds, others are celebrating, and what the future will bring is unclear.  What is certain is that in the wake of the […]

By Rabbi Jonathan Miller All of us are shaken by the mob takeover of the United States’ Capitol Building this week at the urging of our president. Like many of you, I am overcome by the news and the pundits and the experts. How did […]

Col. Jennifer Pritzker Tulane University has received a $1 million gift — and an additional matching challenge grant of up to $1 million — from the TAWANI Foundation, led by Colonel (IL) Jennifer N. Pritzker, IL ARNG (Retired). The gift will establish the Audrey G. […]

On Jan. 4, tributes poured in as Phyllis Weinstein, a longtime visionary leader of Birmingham’s Jewish community, turned 100. Two days later, just after midnight on the morning of Jan. 6, she passed peacefully in her sleep. Known most recently as the founder of the […]

Rep. Barry Moore (R-Ala.). Credit: Barry Moore Republican for Congress/Facebook. By Jackson Richman (JNS) — Barry Moore, a Republican, was sworn in as a member of the 117th Congress on Jan. 3 after he defeated Democrat Phyllis Harvey-Hall on Nov. 3 in the U.S. House […]

Spencer R. Crew, interim director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture, discusses the civil rights battles of 1963 in Alabama. By Richard Friedman An imaginative, diverse and compelling program took place online on Dec. 21, highlighting facets of hate that […]

Photo from the January 2020 festival in Baton Rouge. No in-person screenings will be held for the 2021 festival. The Baton Rouge Jewish Film Festival is going virtual this year, with a series of online offerings. The festival, now in its 15th year, normally takes […]