| Memorial Day began in this country after the Civil War as an effort toward reconciliation between the families of veterans in the North and the South. After the war, there was already a tradition in the North of decorating soldiers' graves, called "Decoration Day." But in 1868 an organization of Northern war veterans decreed it ought to be a national holiday. May 30 was carefully chosen as the date because it was not the anniversary of a specific battle, and therefore would be a neutral date for both sides.
BLOG POSTS  | Rita Nakashima Brock, Ph. D.: Memorial Day, War, and the Dead We Ignore
The psychological and emotional effects of combat are often referred to as the "hidden wounds of war." But given veteran rates of homelessness, unemployment, divorce, depression, incarceration, and suicide, how can such wounds really be invisible or hard to detect? |  | Amy Koplow: Jewish Soldiers Perform Selfless Acts of Kindness (PHOTOS)
The young soldiers of West Point performed the ultimate act of kindness in Judaism -- chesed shel emet, an act of loving kindness which cannot be repaid by the recipient of the act. |  | Ruth Messinger: Our Current Global Food Crisis and How We Can Feed 17 Million More People
This year during Shavuot, the Jewish holiday which marks the end of the harvest, I am reminded of my commitment to alleviate hunger. |  | Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben, Ph.D.: Etan Patz and 5 Lessons That Loss Can Teach
The pain of my childhood loss became something I could no longer deny, and I made a vow to turn my own life-long struggle to learn how to live with grief and loss into lessons that would guide the rest of my life. |  | John Shore: Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State writes IRS about Pastor Charles Worley
I think Barry W. Lynn's letter could prove to be the snowball that finally starts the avalanche that ultimately wipes out political proselytizing from the pulpit of American churches. | | MOST POPULAR ON HUFFINGTONPOST.COM |
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