Avital Chizhik

Armed with only an abandoned piano and small suitcase of musical scores, Rafael Schachter defied the Nazis at Terezin in the only way he knew how: through his music. This week, his Defiant Requiem is revived in New York City.

Suddenly, the intense flavor of the lifestyle we were taught has faded. We are in a battle of traditional educations and liberal thinking, of ideals and temptations. And at some point, things become so muddled that we can’t tell which is which anymore.

At Limmud FSU’s annual Jewish learning conference in Princeton, New Jersey, second-generation Russian-Jewish immigrants find common ground and plenty of reasons to sing.

Our turbulent pursuit of meaning is in no way restricted to the sanctuaries and libraries of scholars, but it exists at our tables, in our kitchens, offices, bedrooms and gardens.

Perhaps the memory of the Holocaust lies within us, in our 'absent memories' and inherited traumas, but it certainly does not exist in the magnificent hall of the UN General Assembly, which continues to turn a blind eye to genocide.

If you trip on the ice while on a date with a Haredi rabbinical student, he won't extend his hand, but he might offer you his umbrella.

A first-generation American finds a balance between the strange dichotomy of Soviet culture and her rediscovered religion.

A sign that things are also changing in the insular Orthodox world.

Whoever he is, he has already read whatever he could find online. He’ll read this, too. It’s a matter of minutes, usually, until he shyly alludes to an article.