Reform judaism formally dropped the desire for a return to the days of a central Temple with a hereditary priesthood and animal sacrifices, the decentralized synagogues with educated rabbis are the religion’s present and its future. So it’s OK to name those synagogues “Temple”, which Conservative or Orthodox don’t do.

More importantly, does “shul” rhyme with “school” or with “full”. I grew up with one pronunciation, and was surprised when I first heard the other, as an adult. And does the variation depend on where you grew up speaking English, or on where your grandparents grew up speaking Yiddish?

And for the record, Reform Jews and non-observant Jews are completely different, though many Orthodox and Conservative Jews are reluctant to acknowledge that difference.

And Morris, I don’t think the shul/temple thing is quite so straightforward: I’ve been part of Conservative congregations where people generally said “shul,” and some where people generally said “temple.” I suspect there might be some generational influence as well: I never remember having heard my grandfather call synagogues anything but “shul,” and I doubt my children have ever said anything but “temple.” “Synagugue,” at least in my experience, never rolls smoothly off anybody tongue — which kind of makes sense, because what’s a Greek word doing there in the first place?

Rasheed, there’s not always IHOP. Getting a later-than-planned start on our drive up to ski country on December 24, we had a hard time finding somewhere to eat supper on the way, and the one IHOP we tried was closed at around 5 or 6PM (surprisingly, to me, since it’s right next to a mall, where all of the last-minute shoppers should have been).

Well. He’s agnostic, but he goes through the motions. Is that Cultural?

(And yes my username is Chuck, but I am a girl. He’s not a gay agnostic Jew.)

As for the question, he spent Christmas with me, but he left early to light the menorah with his parents and enjoy his mom’s cooking. He didn’t go to temple for Yom Kippur either, so from my sample of 3 (him and his parents) I say equal.

Our family is Muslims & Catholics, sometimes I’ll park it at church with Mom, sometimes I don’t. This year I went, and one of my sisters absolutely refused to consider Chinese this year, and the rest of us were sick of IHOP… so we went to the Waffle House (double sigh)

….so off to the Buffet! For the record, they are comforatbly busy every year!

Seriously, the Kaballah is a form of Jewish Mysticism, and not really mainstream Judaism.

I can say that driving from FL to OH on the 25th, we definitely looked for an exit with a Chinese restaurant (or Japanese)

So more reading material
http://www.uscj.org/Koach/koc_5767_tamuz_llehrer.htm

R