A Day of Love - in Jerusalem and Jersey...
Tonight was the first time I genuinely missed my Home. Not Fort Wayne, Indiana, a place I once called home. Not Knoxville, Tennessee, the place my parents most recently began to call home after a 20 year exile... And not Bloomington or Washington, DC, either. Beginning at sundown tonight is Tu B'Av - essentially like Valentines Day - a Day of Love. This day falls after a period of time in the Jewish calendar specifically set aside to commemorate various moments of destruction in Jewish history - such as the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem and in modern times, the Holocaust. On this day, Tisha B'Av , and in the preceding days, weddings do not generally happen in Jewish communities. Tonight I was walking to a birthday party Beer-Luck (we're working on the wikipedia entry at press) and passed the courtyard to Jerusalem's " Great Synagogue. " You'll be shocked to know that "The Greatest Synagogue," the "OK Synagogue" or "Not as G...