So says the Lord God: In the first month, on the first of the month, you shall take a young bull without blemish, and you shall purify the altar. And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin-offering and put it on the doorpost of the House, and on the four corners of ...

Whatever its earthly, economic problems, Greece owes me big. This week, I cleansed it of a three-headed Hydra, freed Athens from hordes of the undead, and gave Prometheus a hand with that pesky bird pecking at his liver.
No need to thank me, however. I was just doing my bit. Or rather, Kratos was: He is ...

“Next year in Jerusalem” is, of course, the traditional conclusion of the Passover seder. But “Next year in Aruba” may be gaining ground.
Passovers spent away from home are a long-standing tradition. Instead of hauling boxes of dishes out of storage, performing bedikat chametz, and spending days—or weeks—preparing kosher-for-Passover meals, observant East Coast Jews who could ...

In the cosmology of Jewish holidays, Passover has traditionally been the celebration whose readings and rituals inspire worshippers to question the nature of their own Jewish values and beliefs. For decades, Jews of all persuasions have fashioned their own seders, some adding a cup for the prophetess Miriam in celebration of Jewish women, others supplementing ...

My former commander in the Israel Defense Forces, a gruff but funny paratrooper with an overdeveloped sense of the macabre, was fond of quoting the saying, “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”
I thought about him last weekend as I watched the most recent offerings from two of cinema’s contemporary ...

WHAT’S It ALL ABOUT?
Purim is the Hebrew word for “lots,” and the lots in question were drawn by Haman, an evil advisor to the Persian king Ahasuerus in the 4th century BCE, in order to decide on which day the kingdom’s Jews would be put to death. The plan was foiled thanks to Esther, the ...