“They blow the conch shell. We blow the shofar.” That’s how Rabbi Rachel Short, a rabbi on Hawaii’s Big Island, put it in a conversation the day after JNS reported that Jews, who make up about 0.69% of Hawaii’s population, were the targets of 75% of the religion-based hate crimes in the state in 2025 and, per official data, were targeted in 4.3% of all hate crimes in Hawaii since 2023.

The Talmud, in tractate Sukkah, discusses constructing a sukkah on an elephant. The Biblical Museum of Natural History in Israel made it happen. “It’s hard to avoid talking about the elephant in the room, which is literally the elephant in the room,” said Rabbi Natan Slifkin, the museum director known as the “zoo rabbi.”

Is it hard to be joyous? The Vilna Gaon (1720-1797) is reputed to have said that the hardest mitzvah in the Torah is to be joyous for all seven days of Sukkot, without stop. Is it tough to be happy?Is it right to take drugs, or to drink heavily, if that is the only way to feel joyous?

For 32 years, Esther Melamed has been the secular studies principal at Beth Jacob High School. That’s a lot of students she has seen and guided. Melamed estimates that over the years she has taught 800 to 900 graduates; a perfect background to bolster conversations about the 250th anniversary of the US and the future of America.

Rabbi Susan Miller Rheins’ passport has a lot of stamps: Eastern Europe, Morocco and Israel, of course.One place draws particular fascination. One place keeps calling her name. Cuba.

The fifth season of the Israeli action-thriller “Fauda” ranked first among Netflix shows in Lebanon during the week of Sept. 7-13, according to the subscription-based streaming service’s Tudum country rankings for the period.