Over the last several months, as the hatred towards Israel has continued to be exhibited through the ongoing protests, local cities adopting resolutions, and then, of course, the challenges that universities have faced with the growing pro-Palestinian protests, tent encampments, etc., many i…
With the events that have been transpiring in Israel and Gaza recently, a conversation I had with the Consult General of Israel has flooded my mind. Last April, I was interviewing then Consul General Hillel Newman for an upcoming JLife SGPV article. During our conversation, I asked him why i…
I love our tradition, especially the knowledge we can turn to as a guide of how we should love our lives. One of my favorite teachings in all of Judaism comes from Pirkei Avot, a collection of sayings/teachings from the great Rabbis. This particular one is attributed to Rabbi Tarfon - Lo al…
So often, we get tired of the mundane… the routine… the things that we determine are boring because they happen the same way all the time. And yet, when things “break” from the ordinary and it is unclear how this “new” situation will play out, we get nervous and are unsure how to…
Like so many people, I have been astonished by not only the sheer number of people who are supporting the Palestinian cause following October 7 but also how they have chosen to express their support.
In just over seven months, shortly after the IDF retaliated following Hamas' October 7 …
When I was 16, I went to Israel on a six-week trip with 44 other teens from the San Francisco Bay area. It was my first visit to Israel, and the experience impacted me tremendously. It was not until I returned from the trip that I truly understood how my life had changed. You see, the day we…
Last week, I spoke with a student from Azusa Pacific University who had questions she needed answers to for an assignment on Judaism. During our conversation, she asked if I had ever personally experienced antisemitism and what that was like for me. I shared with her that I had been spit at …
If you ask a child what their three favorite days of the year are, one of them will inevitably be their birthday. And if you ask them why, they would probably say because they get presents. As we get older, our birthdays tend to be less about the presents and more about marking an important …
I used to love going to arcades with my quarters in hand and was always on the hunt for where the pinball machines were because I LOVE pinball! I would always be amazed at those people who were good at the whack-a-mole game because they could do it much better than me, so I continued stickin…
I want to start my weekly column by expressing my personal appreciation to everyone in the community who contacted Pasadena's City Council members and the Mayor to express how they felt about the city possibly adopting a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. The individual city coun…
For the last several weeks, a lot of my attention has been focused on efforts to counter the latest attempts to get local city councils to adopt resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. I have watched past city council meetings and paid close attention to the …
I remember watching the show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader and thinking, “Did I really ever learn this information?” I know I had an excellent education, but some of the information I was taught either a) went right over my head or b) I didn’t think I would ever need the info, so…
President’s Day was always a weird holiday for me. When I was growing up, we usually got off school for both President Lincoln’s AND President Washington’s birthdays. I don’t remember when we stopped celebrating President Washington’s birthday by itself and had his lumped in with P…
Hi…, my name is Jason Moss, and I am a proud member of the Jewish community.
My Judaism is something I have been proud of for as long as I can remember. I was THAT kid who loved Sunday School and Hebrew School. I never thought of it as something I HAD to do…rather… it was something I …
This past Saturday, January 27, was UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day. As we have done for the past six years, our Jewish Federation brought the community together for our Sixth Annual Every Person Has a Name – our 25-hour Holocaust Commemoration and Vigil that the City of Pasade…
