Posted on Times of Israel

Essentials of Judaism is a 558-page volume from Urim Publications, an independent publishing house established in 1997 in Jerusalem and New York (Brooklyn), specializing in high-quality Jewish-interest books. It publishes approximately 15 books annually on subjects such as Jewish thought, law, spirituality, modern biographies, Bible commentary, and children’s literature. Tzvi Mauer and Moshe Heller established it.

This 2026 volume was written by Chashi Freedman and Chaim Iram, with a Foreword by Benjamin Ish-Shalom. It is both an introduction and a guided tour through the landscape of Jewish belief, practice, history, and values.

Professor Ish-Shalom accurately describes the work as “the first attempt of its kind to provide access to an entire Jewish world.” The book earns the compliment. The authors created a text that speaks simultaneously to the intellectually curious reader, the seeker of religious inspiration, and the conversion student searching for a reliable and comprehensive guide.

The book is, as the professor describes, “user-friendly.” Freedman and Iram write lucidly, well-organized, and highly informative, without resorting to oversimplification. Complex theological concepts, legal traditions, and historical developments are presented carefully and patiently. Readers unfamiliar with Hebrew terminology or Jewish customs are never made to feel excluded. The tone is warm and explanatory rather than academic or dogmatic. It is very easy to use. For example, it contains an index of over twenty pages, with each page containing two columns of references, so that readers can use this guide to find the subject they are seeking.

The amount of material is also impressive. In thirteen sections, each containing as many as eight chapters, the authors inform readers about Jewish identity, beliefs, history, the written and oral Torah, daily Jewish routine, prayer, blessings, the Shabbat, holidays, the State of Israel, morality, love, family, and the laws of keeping kosher.

The authors maintain a balance between tradition and modernity. They present Judaism as a living civilization, not a collection of rituals or historical memories. The discussions reveal the moral and philosophical ideas underlying the Jewish practices, helping readers understand not only what Jews do but also why these practices have endured for centuries.

Conversion candidates, in particular, will likely find it invaluable because it anticipates the questions many newcomers ask but are sometimes hesitant to voice. However, even knowledgeable readers may discover fresh insights.

Essentials of Judaism stands as a significant contribution to Jewish educational literature. It is comprehensive without being cumbersome, scholarly without being inaccessible, and traditional without becoming rigid. For anyone seeking a clear and meaningful entry into the world of Judaism, this book more than lives up to its title.

For more information on this boo, visit Urim Publications

For more information about this book, visit Urim Publications

Posted at The Jewish Press

Rabbi Yisroel Majeski shares a beautiful story in a video called Meaningful Minute. A Rebbe once asked his student, “Who is the holiest Jew that ever existed?”The Chassid answered, “Avraham Avinu, of course! He discovered G-d.” The Rebbe asked another student, “What was the holiest time period of all?”“When the Jewish nation received the Torah at Har Sinai.” He asked a third Chassid, “What is the holiest place in the entire world?”“The Kodesh Kedoshim, Holy of Holies, in the Beis HaMikdash.”The Rebbe responded, “You are all wrong. The holiest person is you. The holiest time is right now. The holiest place is here.”

The above is an excerpt from Just Say Yes! which embodies the ideas of living in the here and now, striving to be the best person you can be.

A compendium of ideas for growth through embracing positivity and possibility, Just Say Yes! is a treasure-trove of individual ideas and suggestions, culled from spiritual and (l’havdil) psychological literature which individually and together can create a better life – physically, emotionally, spiritually, and interpersonally. It is a step-by-step self-actualization manual filled with age old and new age wisdom, replete with inspiring true personal stories and anecdotes, insights and fresh perspective.

“With a treasury of anecdotes, poignant quotations, and vital rabbinic references, the book is supremely wise and reader friendly. Reading Just Say Yes! is an inspiration; living it is a transformation,” says Rabbi Hanoch Teller.

Sarah Pachter combines her decades of experience as a writer, speaker, teacher, wife, and mother to give us the best advice for reaching our milestones and miracles and following the path to greatness.

Pachter intertwines common wisdom, psychological perspectives, spiritual tenets and inspiring vignettes, anyone can relate to, to create a strategic game plan for success in its deepest, and most meaningful sense.

Each of the many topics is covered from a fresh perspective with a roadmap to success of the most universal kind.

A week before my son’s bar mitzvah, a friend shared the following advice, “Know that something is going to go wrong or won’t match your expectations. If you want to enjoy the event, decide beforehand that nothing will stand in the way of your happiness that night.”

Her advice was spot on! Mishaps occur at every simcha (celebration). Our job is to decide whether we want to focus and ruminate on them, or move on and enjoy the event wholeheartedly. The decision to be happy during an event is, in a microcosm, choosing happiness for the longest event of all time: life.

Pachter delineates the three major types of relationships we have – with ourselves, with others, and with Hashem. She gives us salient advice in a user-friendly way for getting the most out of all three relationships by saying yes to challenges, saying yes to opportunities, saying yes to possibilities, and thereby saying yes to spiritual growth! Which is the key to success in every relationship.

Along with introspective wisdom, there are pithy affirmations which you will be well off adopting like:

When you expect something, then everything is nothing, but when you expect nothing, something is everything.

Or

You can do anything when you realize you are not the one doing anything.

But you can say yes, to buying this book. And I heartily recommend that you do.

For more information on this book, visit Urim Publications

Kajtek – A Child in Disguise, a Jewish Martyr, and the Name She Carried into War

Before she was Kajtek, she was Stefcia.

Before she was Stefcia, she was Edna.

She was not yet 5 years old, small and blonde, standing at a birthday party in Warsaw when the first bombs fell. Before that moment, she had been a child who was read to every night by a family of ten who loved her.

One of those books was Kaytek the Wizard.

She was too young to read it herself. But she remembered the boy, a mischievous Warsaw child who discovers he can do magic and begins to lead a double life. Powerful and hidden, dressed as ordinary.

It was just a story.

In 1944, a 9-year-old Jewish girl hiding as a Catholic Polish child became a courier for the Armia Krajowa during the Warsaw Uprising.

They asked her for a nom de guerre.

She chose Kajtek.

She had no way of knowing what she had chosen.

She chose the name of a fictional boy.
She did not know she was also choosing the memory of a man who had just died with children like her.

The boy in the book had been created by Janusz Korczak, a pediatrician, writer, and one of the most revered advocates for children in Poland.

He ran a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw built on a radical idea that children were not future people, but present ones deserving of dignity, justice, and a voice. He wrote stories for them, including Kaytek the Wizard, to explore power, consequence, and responsibility.

Edna’s family read that book to her before the world ended.

When the Germans sealed Warsaw’s Jews inside the ghetto in 1940, Korczak moved his orphanage with them. He refused offers to escape. He refused to abandon the children.

In August 1942, the Germans ordered the deportation of the orphanage.

Korczak led his children in a column to the Umschlagplatz, the square where Jews were loaded onto trains bound for death. They wore their best clothes. Some carried small flags.

He had been offered his freedom.

He refused it.

“They will not go alone.”

They were sent to Treblinka extermination camp.

None returned.

The man who wrote the story died with his children.
The child who carried the story survived.

That same system of deportation took Edna’s family.

Her brother. Her sister. Her aunt and uncle. Her cousins. The people who had filled the long table at 18 Miła Street with noise and life.

They were sent to Treblinka.

She never knew.

By 1944, Edna had already survived what should have been impossible.

She smuggled food through the ghetto walls.

Shortly before her mother starved to death in the ghetto, she sent her two youngest daughters to the Aryan side to be cared for by a gentile former employee.

Their older brother was already hiding elsewhere.

The woman took the money, then tried to betray them.

The girls kicked her and ran.

Two little girls alone in occupied Warsaw.

She learned quickly. Survival meant becoming someone else.

She learned how to pass. How to answer questions. How to disappear into the expectations of others.

She sang and danced for German officers to secure identity papers.

She became Stefcia Skolkowska.

Catholic. Polish. Not who she was.

When the resistance asked her for a name, she chose the boy from the story.

Kajtek.

A child leading a double life. Ordinary on the surface. Something else underneath.

She could not have known that the man who wrote that story had been murdered alongside children like her and alongside her own family.

She only knew the name belonged to something from before.

So she carried it forward.

A name from a story became a name for survival.

As Kajtek, she moved through the burning city.

She carried messages and weapons. She ran through sewers. She survived the Wola Massacre. She was wounded by a grenade.

On October 2, 1944, her tenth birthday, the uprising ended. The resistance surrendered.

She was awarded the Cross of Valor.

No one knew she was Jewish.

Korczak had written Kaytek the Wizard to teach children that power carries consequence, that shaping the world, even with the best intentions, comes at a cost.

He wrote it for his orphans.

Then he walked with them into the dark.

He taught children how to think about power.
She learned what it meant to carry it.

A little girl who had once been read that story by a family who loved her carried it into war.

She gave its name to herself.

She lived inside it.

She knew the story.

She lived it.

She carried a name into war that had already been carried into death.

Final Note

This Yom HaShoah, remember Edna.

A child who survived by becoming someone else.
A Jewish girl who fought in the resistance.
A name she chose without knowing who had already died with it.

Remember her.

Janet Bond Brill, PhD, is the author of Little Edna’s War, based on her mother-in-law’s Holocaust testimony, published on January 27, 2026, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

For more information on Kaytek the Wizard, visit Urim Publications

by Ben Rothke

Every year brings new printings of the Haggadah from every sector of the Jewish world, with a focus that spans the spectrum of religious thought. Here is a Haggadah I came across that may be of interest to readers.

In the Departing Egypt Passover Haggadah: Insights and Commentary (Urim Publishing), Rabbi Dr. Aryeh Frimer writes that there have been about 5,000 editions of the Passover Haggadah published. In this extremely broad, deep, and meaningful commentary, it seems like Frimer quotes from all 5,000.

Frimer is one of those super geniuses who can be both a significant Talmud chacham and excel in the professional sphere. He was a pulpit rabbi and later a professor of active oxygen chemistry (whatever that is) at Bar Ilan University.

He writes that throughout his adult life, he has devoured the writings of many different commentators on the Haggadah. What comes out is a labor of love in this over 400-page, densely packed Haggadah.

Frimer focuses on the structure and wording of the Haggadah, and it is filled with countless fascinating insights. Similar to those that analyze not just the contents, but also the structure of Mishna Torah, he analyzes the arrangement of the Hagaddah, and nothing gets by him.

In this amazing work, he analyzes the Hagaddah at the macro and micro levels. At the micro level, he focuses on word choice and sentence structure. At the macro level, he examines how the Haggadah is organized, its logical structure, its goals, and more.

For those looking for an extraordinary, deep, and broad look at pretty much everything related to the Haggadah, Frimer’s work is your go-to guide.

For more information on this book, visit Urim Publications

Posted on Chabad.org

Hear Silvia Fishbaum share how her second attempt to escape communist Czechoslovakia succeeded and how she uses her personal experience to educate the world about Judaism and Anti-Semitism.

For more information on this book see Urim Publications

Some years after I had moved on, we met at an event. Rav Marcus asked me what I was doing, and I replied that I was looking to expand my involvement in editing Torah literature. Not too many weeks passed when I got to experience his characteristic concern for others and alacrity in finding solutions. He called me and asked, “How would you like to edit an English translation of the Aruch Hashulchan?”

It transpires that he had met Tzvi Mauer of Urim Publications and discovered that he had a translation of the Aruch Hashulchan’s Hilchot Shabbat that needed some editing to ready it for publication. Rav Marcus had a great love for the sefer. He spoke of how Rav Moshe Feinstein ztz”l, one of his mentors and former neighbor, admired the Aruch Hashulchan and often quoted his rulings. But introducing Tzvi and me to each other was not enough for this man of action. He boldly moved the project forward by securing some funding for it, including from an esteemed student, and maintained constant encouragement and involvement.

The ongoing English edition of the Aruch Hashulchan, published by Urim Publications, is one of the monuments Rav Jay Marcus leaves behind him. We hope and pray that in his merit we will complete the mission he entrusted to us.

For more information about this book, visit Urim Publications

In 1982, together with Rav Ahron Silver and Rav Dovid Gottlieb, Rav Jay founded Reishit Yerushalayim in Beit Shemesh, one of the earliest English-speaking yeshivos in the hesder style. What began as a bold vision soon became a landmark institution that reshaped the landscape of Torah education for young men from North America and beyond. His ability to connect, inspire, and uplift made Reishit a home for serious learning, personal growth, chessed, and unwavering commitment to Eretz Yisroel and Klal Yisroel.

Before establishing Reishit, Rav Jay served as the beloved Rav of the Young Israel of Staten Island for more than 30 years. There, too, he was a force of leadership and compassion, guiding a community with clarity, humility, and heart. Upon making aliyah, he poured his energy into building Reishit into a powerhouse of Torah, producing generations of rabbis, educators, and community leaders who continue to carry his teachings into communities around the world. Each year, Reishit attracted large groups of students drawn by Rav Jay’s warmth, vision, and authenticity.

Rav Marcus was a man of rare determination, combining deep love for his talmidim with the courage to build something entirely new. His relentless dedication turned a small, uncertain yeshiva into a thriving center of Torah and idealism.

Rav Jay is survived by his wife, Rebbetzin Barbara; his sister, Michal; his children, Rav Ari and Mindy, Rav Elie and Dvora, Rav Doni and Deedee, Rav Chaim and Leah, and Rav Judah and Ora Mischel; and grandchildren.

The levaya was held Friday, Nov.21, at the Eretz HaChaim cemetery, with shiva held at Yeshivat Reishit at 21 Rashi Street in Beit Shemesh.