Jewish Blogs

Casino Jack: An Awful Movie About an Awful Person

Overall the film Casino Jack is an awful movie about an awful person. The feeling we were left with after seeing it was somewhere between nausea and an intense desire to shower to wash the sleaze off.The reviewers will praise all the components of the film – the acting, directing, writing, pacing, filming and so on. It is a professionally made Hollywood ...

Carrying the Torch

Perhaps what I love most about the Jewish tradition, about the dance of life and its cycles, is that wonderful interplay between tradition and innovation. From the time of the first temple to now, in the twenty-first century, the Jewish people have celebrated, reconciled, uplifted, and honored that tension.I am here today, ready to do the same!As Leah Berkenwald bids ...

Careful, Sports Fans!

We’ve all heard of athletes having a heart seizure in the middle of a heated game, but couch potatoes? Our dear friend Paramedic Eitan Ashman from Ephrat told me the following story (he’ll soon be able to put a a hair-raising book from his experiences, especially in the aftermath of terrorist attacks):Read More: @ lazerbrody.typepad.comYou might also like:No Entrance!Like A ...

Career or children?

Question:Although children did not come easily to me, thank G-d I now have three school age children. Sometimes I can’t help feeling like I’m neither here nor there – not really immersed in child-rearing to the exclusion of everything else, but not entirely free to go back to school to pursue my interests. I can only imagine how betrayed women ...

Cantillation Survey

If you’ve been to a few different Torah services you’ve probably noticed that everyone who chants from the Torah has their own particular way of doing it. There are standards for how things should go, but in terms of what notes people sing, and how elaborate they get, there’s an infinite amount of variation. That said, even cantillation from different ...

Candlestick Park Lacks Light Before Hanukkah

Irony. On the night before Hanukkah, tonight’s Monday Night Football game was delayed because there was no light in Candlestick Park in San Francisco. As if it’s not funny enough that a stadium named Candlestick had no electricity, it brings to mind the story of Hanukkah.Perhaps if they could just find enough electricity at Candlestick Park for one quarter of ...

Can you use Marijuana on Passover?

Via Earth Times with a big smile. Is cannabis kosher for Passover?JERUSALEM (UPI) In Israel, rabbis are trying to determine if hemp and its cousin, marijuana, are on the list of legumes that some Jews must abstain from during Passover.This year, the Green Leaf Party, which advocates legalization of marijuana, warned its members by e-mail that it may be considered ...

Can you imagine if frummies were liberal?

If frummies ever decided to be liberals we would all be in trouble, not only would they hold by unnecessary stringencies when it came to Judaism, they may also start to try and control the communities life in other ways. Can you imagine what it may look like?Kiddush: Is that cholent made with free range beef? Are you sure it’s grass ...

Can you be frum and liberal?

Whenever I talk to left wing Jews they always elicit some sort of shock when I tell them that finding a frum liberal is next to impossible. I’m not talking about modern orthodox Jews here, I’m talking about right of modern, black hat – wig wearing Jews who overwhelmingly tend to be right wing, far right wing in fact and ...

Can Kiruv Rabbis Use Sex to Mekarev Someone?

They say that each generation goes lower in morality than the previous one and this is pretty blatant by the latest news of the chabad world. Apparently a Chabad shaliach in Russia is the latest to succumb to immorality by thinking he could be mekarev a Jewish girl who has fallen to hooking as a profession, unfortunately, the Rabbi was ...

Can Judaism Survive the Internet?

Slate has another article in their unofficial series on orthodox Judaism and specifically on chasidic Judaism. In this article, the Internet is presented as a supreme danger to Hasidism.On this issue, the secular media and the leadership of the chasidic groups agree. The Internet is a Pandora’s Box for a chasidic Jew. There is no way around it. The article ...

Can inverting your yarmulke help relieve headaches?

It sounds pretty crazy as home remedies go, but according to one very excited Yeshiva World News reader it has worked many times. I’m wondering what other frum placebo’s there are? Will walking backward out of a shul really help me prevent from being a hunch back and will using extra water when I wash negel vasser really save my ...