WBEZ 91.5 Chicago

It’s not an obvious mix, this complicated Chinese game and Jewish grandmothers. So how’d we get here?

Over the next two weeks, some 5,000 people will fill the sanctuaries at Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C., to pray, worship and remember their spiritual roots."

A few years ago, I read an article attempting to parse the seemingly random trends in baby names. Sociologists tried to figure out why there now seem to be a glut of baby Isabellas, but nary a baby Lisa in sight.

Rabbi Brant Rosen, 47, remembers vividly the night he met his future congregant, Boris Furman, 58.He was applying for the position of rabbi at Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston and attended a party thrown by the search committee.