During these challenging times, we extend our deepest sympathies to the following who have lost relatives this past weekend:

To Hope Stanger, on the passing of her brother, Jordan Stanger.  The funeral took place this weekend; Hope can be reached via email at [email protected]

To Barbara Shapiro, on the passing of her mother, Sylvia Shapiro, over the weekend in Florida.  Click here for the obituary.

And to Debra Pollack, whose cousin, Rabbi Manny Gold also passed away this weekend.  Rabbi Gold was a leading educator and superb teacher - and also is part of a very small and distinguished club: He was rabbi of Temple Beth El, back in the mid 1960s, during the brief interlude between Rabbi David Pearlman and Rabbi Alex Goldman.  He and I spoke about the challenges that he faced here - but the fact that it wasn't a perfect fit does nothing to diminish the great Jewish educator that he was - in fact he was a driving force at New York's Bureau of Jewish Education.  He was a self-proclaimed  "Renegade Rabbi," which was also the title of his book.  Perhaps TBE was not yet ready for a renegade rabbi at that time! To see a wonderful example of the depth of his knowledge see this blog post  on the origins of Shabbat.