Cairo Park again

I [Rabbi Ephraim Oshry] explained to the adoptive father that his reward would be immense without recognition of having the boy called to the Torah by his name, for he had saved this child from death about which our sages say, “Whoever maintains one Jewish life is considered as if he had maintained the whole world.” G-d will doubtless reward him for his righteousness in raising the boy and educating him in the way of goodness, and grant him many blessings and bounty. Oshry, Efroim, and B. Goldman. Responsa from the Holocaust. Rev. ed. New York: Judaica Press, 2001. On…

Approaching the Ramadan fast for the first time. (Link courtesy of The Velveteen Rabbi.)

This is a great trend overall. My fear is that religion will become a reified, unitary identity that will become over-determined as many traditional group markers are redefined. More Young Americans Identify as Mixed Race – NYTimes.com. The crop of students moving through college right now includes the largest group of mixed-race people ever to come of age in the United States, and they are only the vanguard: the country is in the midst of a demographic shift driven by immigration and intermarriage.