We’re back on another visit to my homeland Kenya, this time to visit its huge and magnificent lakes. Read More »

Where? Black Canyon, spanning the Colorado River between Arizona and Nevada, North America When Was It Built? From March 1931 to March 1936 Why? To control floods, provide irrigation water, and produce hydroelectric power Read More »

“Are you sure you lost your ring again?” my father called down the stairs to my mother. “I have a hanger all the way down the drain and I don’t feel any resistance.” My mother’s response sounded frantic. “I don’t know if it fell down the drain. Read More »

After I got married, I didn’t fall in love with my mother-in-law — at least not at first. I was suspicious of her sweetness, of the presents she gave for every occasion, and … just because. Read More »

Thrift shops conjure up images of dank, musty places that sell incomplete puzzles and Grandma’s ancient mohair coat. Think again. The world of secondhand has reinvented itself, and consignment stores are happening places where savvy shoppers pick up anything from designer furs to antique record players for a frof their original price. Read More »

Kids with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) can be obstinate, rude, and explosive. They can also be helped Read More »

“I do not get involved with Divine calculations. Hashem does whatever is necessary, and I accept His decrees with love.” As Rav Yaakov Yosef battles an illness that has a 5 percent survival rate, he spoke candidly about his prognosis, his commitment not to deviate from his intense Torah schedule, and his belief in the goodness of Divine decrees. Read More »

Last week, residents of the Syrian city of Homs faced what they call a “massacre,” as Bashar al-Assad’s regime targeted the city to show how far he’ll go to stamp out the opposition. Further south, in the border city of Daraa, residents face another bloodbath. Read More »

Flatbush’s busiest hub of prayer traces its history to an airless bunker beneath the Slovakian ground – where Rav Yechezkel Shraga Landau carved out a place of holiness and prayer despite the Nazi footfalls overhead. Read More »

The legal details of foreclosure vary from state to state, but the process follows the same grim outline everywhere. After the homeowner misses several monthly payments, the bank can take away the house. Read More »

While fewer than four dozen men have actually ever made it to the White House, that hasn’t deterred a bumper crop of little-known third-party and independent candidates who pulled enough signatures to make their bid for the Oval Office. Read More »

When Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt and his wife, Dara, set out for a one-year trial in Moscow’s rabbinate, they saw it as an adventure. Born in Switzerland, educated in Bnei Brak, beneficiary of Telsher reservoirs and Rabbi Naftali Neuberger’s diplomatic savvy, Rabbi Goldschmidt brought a unique skill set to Russia. Years later, he sees Moscow as home. Read More »

It’s not quite a Yom Tov, yet it’s not a regular day, either. It’s called Rosh HaShanah, yet it’s very different to the Yom Tov Rosh HaShanah when we blow shofar and daven a lot. Read More »

It’s a celebration! It’s a birthday! During this month, exactly one year ago, Zeidy Zakon got into his jeep and started zoom zoom zoooming together with all of you kids on trips around Eretz Yisrael. Let’s travel with Bubby Zakon to get a surprise birthday gift for Zeidy. Shhhh! Don’t tell Zeidy! It’s a surprise. Read More »

A group of Jews all living in one place does not a community make. It takes determination, effort, and creativity to graft disparate families into a cohesive whole. Read More »

Learn how to push the “relaxation response” knob in your brain, and it’ll send your stress levels down — and your mood up. Read More »

Trees are not only an essential part of the earth’s ecosystem; they also contain a varied treasure trove of medicinal chemicals that can used to treat almost any ailment. And we’re not talking about exotic rainforest plants here but the familiar, well-loved trees that grow in your backyard. Read More »

For children born with hydranencephaly, a rare condition in which all or much of the brain is missing, the prognosis is usually gloomy — death by age one. But then there are children like four-year-old Natan Shai, who are beating all the odds and bringing great joy to their families. Read More »

This is not the beginning of a joke. Three Russians, one Frenchman, one Spaniard, and one Chinese man cut themselves off from the world for a period of a year and a half. Read More »

He spent his life in a hovel, appearing like a common laborer. But his eyes burned with a holy fire, and he was called a “malach” by the greatest mekubalim and tzaddikim of his generation. Read More »