The Forward Comes Through: This week has been all about Whoopi Goldberg. No, it really hasn’t — but Abq Jew couldn’t seem to get what’s left of his mind wrapping around anything else. Until he caught this article in the Forward. 150 Greatest Jewish Pop Songs Inspired in part…

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl: As you have probably already learned, it was indeed Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, Senior Rabbi of Manhattan’s Central Synagogue, whom the gunman at Congregation Beth Israel contacted one week ago. Rabbi Buchdahl spoke about those two telephone encounters at the Kabbalat Shabbat service this past Friday. …

Going to Services Should Not Be: No, Abq Jew does not want to blog about the Congregation Beth Israel hostage taking, standoff, or escape. Others, with more knowledge and insight than Abq Jew — from the JTA and The Forward to mainstream newspapers and even TV — have covered the…

Win! A Torah Trifecta! Abq Jew must tell you that this Shabbat, Shabbat Miketz, is not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill Shabbat, For not only is it Shabbat Miketz — it is also Rosh Hodesh Tevet, and it is also Shabbat Hanukkah. Which means - For us Jews, Shabbat is approaching —…

A History of Returns to Netflix: Future Folk come from the planet Hondo, a planet where music doesn’t exist. When they landed on Earth, they liked music so much they decided to stay and form Future Folk. And, quite surprisingly, Abq Jew was completely unaware of this. Until last night…

Erudite Outrage : Mort Sahl, the comic whose caustic and fearlessly observant routines about Cold War politics in the button-down 1950s transformed American comedy and paved the way for generations of acid-witted humorists, not least Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, died Oct. 26 at his home in Mill Valley, Calif…

May we all be inscribed and sealed for life! ICYMI — Here is an inspired and strongly-delivered Rosh Hashanah sermon — All Is Not Lost: We Return to The Stone — by the one and only Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, now the Senior Rabbi of New York’s Central Synagogue. Abq Jew…

In the Time of Covid-19 : Democracy and freedom won the 2020 US Presidential Election, even if that victory was not universal down the ballot. There is good reason for joy and optimism. And yet. The numbers of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths from the coronavirus pandemic continue to rise at…

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Morro Rock, the Golden State’s “Gibraltar of the Pacific”, is an extinct volcanic peak rising 576 feet above the ocean. First charted by Juan Cabrillo in 1542, it is now a protected home for the endangered peregrine falcon. Many, many years ago, Abq Jew and…