Style & Living

Recap: Shoshana is held captive in her home by Gator, who demands she hand over her father’s valuable papers. Ruty sneaks in and frees her but Gator catches Ruty and there’s a gunshot.

This year’s Purim marks nearly a year since I’ve given up my prized two-bedroom rental in Kew Gardens Hills for the high taxes, car dependence, and social angst of Gardendale, a suburban community on Long Island that is a magnet for young families priced out of Queens. I remember that sunny and chilly morning last March when the moving vans blocked traffic on 70^th Avenue behind Amazing Savings, a block known to all as Newlywed Row for its many young couples.

The international community has quickly divested itself of Russia, following its brutal invasion of Ukraine in an effort to reconstitute the Russian Empire. On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin shot back at his critics.

So you see the title of this article, and a thousand things flood your brain. After all, we have a ton of weird traditions. Kaparos with a live chicken, whipping hoshanos until the leaves fall off, casting our sins into a lake (and that’s just Tishrei). What about having a specific order for tying shoes or having four different New Year’s Days depending on what it is you’re counting, or redeeming a first-born son or donkey!) from a priest?

There has been a big change in the workforce because of COVID. Many individuals who had no intention of retiring had a change of heart. They realized there’s more to life than working. President Biden, at 79, is well into retirement age. One day he woke up and decided that he’d had enough of being President. Who needs the stress of dealing with one crisis after another - whether it is COVID, the Russian invasion or inflation - while at the same time being personally attacked and subject to ridicule? Biden doesn’t need the money. He would rather spend time in Delaware with his family and friends than tour the country in a Ford Mustang EV.

The photos are breathtaking, the vision is slowly being realized, the message has been heard, and the response has been awe-inspiring. As the plaza of the Kosel filled beyond capacity and the kol tefillah echoed in a way rarely seen, the impact of primarily American-born, English-speaking seminary girls was carried throughout the globe. In a cordoned off corner designated for their services and secured by the IDF, an energetic bunch of Reform women clad in tallis garments chanted, but their chatter was drowned out by the sheer attendance of the Orthodox.