Jewish Blogs

A Last Minute Project For L’Ag B’Omer!

Are you ready? The festive day of L’Ag B’Omer starts on motzei Shabbos (Saturday night) so I thought I’d share this cute project my almost 5 year old brought home from school today. I know you might be thinking it looks like one of the characters from Where The Wild Things Are, but I can assure you it’s a bonfire!Read More: @ creativejewishmom.comYou ...

A Jewish Response to Suicide

Every year in America, nearly 35,000 people commit suicide. Many Jews are among those who take their own lives, and in an effort to respond to the absence of Jewish resources for suicide prevention, Efrem Epstein has founded an organization called Elijah’s Journey: A Jewish Response to Suicide Prevention.Tomorrow night (February 8th) Elijah’s Journey will be joining with Uri L’Tzedek ...

A Jewish Miss America—What Are the Chances?

Growing up with a feminist mother who also happened to own a modeling agency, I am no stranger to the paradox of the Miss America pageant. Yes, for 90 years it’s been about pretty girls with stupendous orthodontia parading around in nude pantyhose and bathing suits and high heels. But it’s also about talent, presence and community service and scholarship—the ...

A Jewish Calendar Primer for Gabe Carimi

I’ve written on this blog several times about Jewish Major League Baseball players and the conflict of playing on Yom Kippur, but I’ve never discussed how the Yom Kippur decision affects NFL football players. This is likely because when there’s a Yom Kippur conflict in pro baseball it is often an important post-season game, yet, in college and pro football ...

A Jew Grows in Scranton

Holy crap! I recently learned that Brad Garrett, the actor who played Ray’s brother Robert on the sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond,” is Jewish. (Real name, Brad Gerstenfeld.)Now, as regular readers of this column already know, I’m not a fan of making a big deal about who’s Jewish and who’s not. It shouldn’t really matter. There are a hell of a ...

A Jazz Talmud

Jake Marmer is the Gen-X Jewish Beat poet who never made it to the Beat Movement, born 40 years or so late and in the wrong country. While Jack Micheline (if you get our daily Jewniverse email, you know who he is) and Denise Levertov were first-generation Americans, embracing the almost-English of free-verse poems with the joy of native English ...

A Hole in the Keppie

My wife and I went to Amherst yesterday to see our son Daniel in a concert. We had some time to kill before the concert started, so we hung out in a bookstore for a while. I like to browse the biography section. I grabbed a book on Frank Sinatra and suddenly realized I had the topic for today’s “License ...

A Handmade Hanukkah Game: Spinning tops From Plastic Bottle Caps!

Here’s a Hanukkah craft that’s also a Hanukkah game! Spinning tops are a traditional Hanukkah toy, so what better activity to engage the kids this Hanukkah than with a simple technique for making their own brigade of spinning tops? Honestly, I think this is one of my best ideas ever, because these tops spin so amazingly well, it’s almost hard ...

A Good Looking Pastrami

There is no other restaurant in New York that makes me feel fatter than when I leave than the 2nd Ave. Deli. And I mean that as a good thing. You might think you’ve eaten good deli before, but if you’ve never been to 2nd Ave., then I’m telling you, you’ve never truly had good deli.And for all the great ...

A girls guide to shadchan speak

A Girl’s Guide to Shadchan-Speakby Chaya Miriam JuradoWhy should guys have all the fun? The following may or may not help you with your search.*He’s a bookkeeper = he can’t even change the windshield wipers on his car;*Used to play football = fat;*Learns in Kollel = unemployed;Read More: @ frumsatire.netYou might also like:Stuff Single Frum Guys likeFine you’re a matchmaker!Girls are ...

A Gender-Free Yom Kippur

I wanted to write this post about women and Yom Kippur, as I often have done for other Jewish holidays, on topics such as what roles women should play during the holiday, stories about women associated with the holiday, etc. But I searched, and was kind of surprised that I found nothing in particular to write about.There were no particular ...

A Funny Thing Happened — True Story!

My mother has always been a great storyteller: In recounting any anecdote, she knows exactly which details to leave out and which ones to exaggerate for maximum impact. She has a keen sense of the ridiculous. Plus she’s got impeccable timing. Meet her for the first time or the hundredth time, and she’ll launch into a story that’ll have you ...