Jewish Blogs

Forks in the Road: Old Divisions, Modern Ramifications

This essay is some one hundred and fifty years late. Events since, some fortunate, most unfortunate, have blurred the differences between the great schools of thought that developed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Doubtless, the Satmar Rebbe (R. Yoel Teitelbaum) had this blurring in mind when he is said to have remarked that he himself was the ...

Forget Bat Mizvah’s have a period party instead

New Age Judaic practice always strikes a weird note with me, it sounds good, you can make some great points from it, but in similar vein that many chumras become halacha at what point will these made up rituals and practices be perceived as halach? Then again many of our traditions were made up at some point and have since ...

Foreskins are not thrown away they get sold and used

Did you ever hear the one about the Mohel who carries around a suitcase that grows when he rubs it? I’m sure you have, it’s the type of joke your Rabbi tells you to make you think he’s cool because he knows about boners, of course you may come to realize someday that a foreskin, merely a piece of dead ...

Foreskin Man vs. The Thing

By now you have all seen the blatantly anti-Semitic Foreskin Man comic, I will save my thoughts on the San Francisco circumcision ban later – but lets just say that while I understand the motivations to ban circumcision (it’s not purely anti-Semitic – some people actually like to pull back a little hood sometimes),I feel it as an attack on ...

Forefather’s Merit: Magen Avraham

We begin the Shemone Esrei with the words, “Hashem open my mouth so my lips can speak your praises.” In a verse in Ezra-Nechemya, Hashem is described as, “U’merom al kol bracha utehila.” He is more exalted than any blessings or praise we can offer. Our prayers are only a small token of what Hashem really deserves. To accurately and fully praise Him is beyond ...

For Vegans the high holidays pose some problems

Being a vegan Jew most of the year doesn’t pose to many problems, many Vegans may refrain from putting on tefillin or using animal skins to make their Torahs and Mezuzot, but these are minor issues that never really conflict with their undying faith to Judaism. However, this all changes when the high holiday’s approach and every year around the ...

Footnote: Finally a Movie that Understands Academia

It’s tough out there for an Israeli film at the Oscars. When an Israeli film gets nominated for best foreign language film it’s almost always because the movie references the Holocaust and/or the Israeli-Arab Conflict. But while a Holocaust theme is a guaranteed win in most categories, not so when it comes to Israeli films. And a film that seems ...

Flying Kosher In Frankfurt

Flying is the worst, right? I mean, except for being able to fly across the world in a matter of hours, it’s still not a fun experience. That is especially truly if you have a long lay over or if you’re flight is delayed.Usually, what I do is walk aimlessly around the airport for hours before sitting down and playing ...

Flower Girl Slippers

You can take any pair of shoes and transform them into elegant slippers with just the addition of some beautiful trim! My daughter is a flower girl in a upcoming family wedding, and while we were happy with these shoes from Target they were missing that special elegant touch. Trim applied quite simply with a glue gun, and some little ...

Floatilla talk is a waste of time but since you asked

Think that talking about the Floatilla is a waste of time, but you folks keep asking me to write about it again, so I will. I can’t really think of anyway to make fun of it, besides for a Pirates of the Mediterranean spoof – so I figured we might as well talk tachlis and be serious for a moment here. The ...

First Person Grief

Last year I wrote a lot about my experiences mourning for my mother. It was an intense and exhausting year, and it still feels very raw to me, though her yahrzeit was in August. Last night I was babysitting a baby who threw up, and then was given the baby equivalent of Ensure. When my mom was sick she was ...

First is the…Worst?

Sally Ride died on Tuesday at the age of 61. First American woman to go into outer space. The first. The very first. American. Woman. Astronaut.What does it mean to be the first? What is our Western love affair with the number one? How does the idea of being “the first” bolster or undermine feminism?I find myself in a Catch-22. Women, though ...