Jewish Blogs

DIY Wine Glass Tea Light Holders With Doodles

Make festive DIY wine glass tea light holders to enjoy now and through the winter. They’re so easy to make, and simple to whip out at a moment’s notice. Candlelight is always a great way to add that extra special touch to any get together whether it be a festive gathering or a family dinner. And with this simple idea, ...

DIY Succulent Centerpiece

Wouldn’t you like to make a fuss free and gorgeous succulent centerpiece using only succulents or succulents combined with your favorite flowers?I don’t know about you, but I love the fact that succulents have become oh so popular in the world of floral arranging and wedding decor. So when I collected some of these succulent flowers on a recent trip ...

DIY Baby Blocks Fun For Any Age

DIY baby blocks aren’t just for babies, especially when they’re covered with interesting illustrations or even messages that you can easily apply with decoupage. I made these DIY baby blocks with recycled scrap-pile wood pieces and covered them with a few layers of paper mache before adding the paper napkin images using decoupage. Truthfully, these crafty baby blocks would look cute sitting ...

Disney Dating

There’s this myth going around that some people are starting to buy into. Maybe you’ve heard about it, it’s called true love. It goes under other names too. Like love at first sight. Or if you’re Jewish, that there’s another half of your soul floating around that you need to connect with in order to be happy.Let me set the ...

Dishonesty in the Service of Animus

The seemingly insatiable appetite of the Forward for anti-Orthodox scandal-mongering has claimed its latest prey, Touro College, a “Jewish-oriented institution that reaches out especially to Orthodox students” (never mind that a full 32% of its student body is “minorities,” and that in 2007 the college opened a medical school in Harlem, specifically to improve medical care in that community and increase the ...

Discovering Sepharad/Al-Andalus: A Short Reading List

I guess it was the recent New York Times profile of the hateful extremist Pamela Geller that set me off again.Though the controversy over the Park51 Islamic community center has died down slightly over the past few weeks, the way in which the culture of Islam has been demonized, particularly by radical Ashkenazi Jews like Ms. Geller who have successfully ...

Dirt

With all the hyped-up headlines, the old joke practically insisted on being dusted off. The one about the group of scientists who inform G-d that His services are no longer needed, that their knowledge of the universe now allows them to run it just fine themselves, thank You. “Can you create life like I did?” asks the Creator. “No problem,” ...

Did the United Arab Emirates Kill Swimmer Fran Crippen?

It’s wrong to conduct a competitive swimming event in water that is too hot to be safe. We swim every day. We know that hot water — above 83 degrees — is uncomfortable for lap swimming. Water near 90 degrees is unsafe for a swim race. Period. Everyone knows that.So why conduct a race in such dangerous conditions? It’s unprofessional, ...

Did Pope Benedict XVI preach that Hell is real and only he can save you from it?

To us it seemed at the time in 2007 that the Australian reported that Pope Benedict XVI insisted in an address in Rome that hell is real and only he and the Catholic Church can save you from it.In the debate that ensued in our blog comments, we stood fast against an onslaught of arguments.We are willing to admit our ...

Did Oprah Go to the Mikveh for Her New Show?

What has Oprah Winfrey been doing since ending her long-running afternoon talk show last May? If your only news source was JTA.org (the Jewish world’s version of the AP), you might think that she has embraced Judaism on the level of Madonna or Demi Moore.A misleading title grabbed many people’s attention this week when the JTA published a news brief ...

Diana Nyad will swim from Cuba to Key West

We find Diana’s ambitious project, her quest, her goal — inspiring. We like best the end of the article with Nyad’s explanation for undertaking this massive challenge after a long hiatus.But why go through this agony again?Ms. Nyad pinned the reason on her gallop toward 60; it unsettled her greatly. She needed a fresh, powerful target to stir up her ...

Detroit Memories

The pizza store in Detroit is like no other I’ve been to, they have the greatest cheese sticks in the world. Soft homemade bread, topped with garlic and filled with cheese. I used to drive out of my way when traveling west just to stop there and fill my tummy with their cheesy goodness. It didn’t hurt that I had ...