Jewish Blogs

How Do You Relate to the Word “Feminist”?

At the Jewish Women’s Archive, the word feminist comes up a lot. I, personally, am proud to be a feminist. To me, the word conjures images of fighting for equality for all, and a long history of strong women who acted to change the status quo. One of the reasons I was so excited to take a position at JWA was to ...

Discover Mindful Jewish Meditation

The benefits of Jewish meditation are accessible to every type of Jew through acts of Jewish piety.People tend to think that the Orthodox and Hasidic Jews are really pious, the Conservative Jews less so, and the Reform and Reconstructionist even less.Not so. Piety is individual. You decide how pious you wish to be. Some may argue that the Liberal Jew ...

Little Women’s Jewish Roots, The Inquistor’s Wife and More

Completely obsessed with this week’ article in the Forward about Louisa May Alcott’s Portuguese Jewish history. (I read Little Womenat least ten times as a child, and I always knew Jo and I had to be from the same DNA somehow!)Eve LaPlante traveled to Portugal recently to research a biography about the Little Women author and her mother, Abigail, to whom she is ...

Dear Rabbi Controversy on Angels and Prayers

Here are this week’s Dear Rabbi Responses and Discussions from the Jewish Standard.Rabbi Zahavy’s response to my letter of May 23 (“Kaddish, Kedushah and Angels”) concerning the efficacy of the Kaddish and the meaning of the Kedushah, is both confusing and incomplete. On the one hand he admits that our prayers, specifically the Kaddish, do not cause God to act regarding the ...

Spelling Knaidel and Bravo’s Princesses Reality TV Show

We Jews have arrived! That seemed to be the general sentiment on my Facebook news feed last night as word traveled around the social network that the winning word in the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee was “knaidel” – the Yiddish word for matzah ball. Most excited Facebook users chimed in on the variant transliterated spellings of the Yiddish word ...

Plastic Surgeon Michael Gray Reconstructs the Social Network

I jumped at the opportunity as soon as I received the press release from Jackie Headapohl, the editor of The Detroit Jewish News, asking me if I’d like to interview Dr. Michael Gray, the well-known plastic surgeon here in Michigan. The press release described a new social network called Pegged that Dr. Gray had created. It sounded as if this ...

The Jacket Rule is More Nonsensical

We stirred up quite a controversy with our “Dear Rabbi” column where we offered advice regarding a rule requiring the wearing of a necktie in a local synagogue on the Sabbath in order to receive an aliyah – a Torah honor.A local synagogue which has such a rule took this as a direct criticism and published an odd rebuttal letter ...

Still Fighting for Bread and Roses

It’s been two weeks since our New York Educator’s Workshop, and I am still amazed at the places we visited and all that was taught by Etta, Ellen, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, and all the participants and presenters in attendance. It occurred to me recently how connected I feel to the labor rights movement, which we discussed as we stood in the Tenement Museum ...

Women of the Wall is a Sham

Pretty much the entire Jewish world is talking about Women of the Wall, they have either desecrated one of the worlds holy sites or made it holy by standing up for women’s rights, but I’m not sure that either are correct. Since when do we even allow women to come to the wall in the first place. Do women have ...

Rationalist Judaism Makes No Sense

I’ve decided that I’m not a fan of rationalist Judaism, most because as much as you try to prove and debate the “facts” supporting a Judaic way of life, it still makes no sense. I’m not really sure how one can prove the Torah was written by God and I’m not really sure why it would matter, it doesn’t make ...

My Thoroughly Jewish Gender

OkCupid tells me I’m “more aggressive” than other queer women. Not just a little more aggressive – it’s by far my strongest trait, closely followed by “more competitive,” and far outstripping “adventurous,” “extroverted,” and “political,” among other categories.While there’s part of me that’s a little embarrassed to be pegged as aggressive and competitive, there’s a part of me that’s a ...

Not Safe For Kashrus (NSFK)

The Star K joined a collection of no-name hechsherim in creating a new criteria for gaining kashrut status. Brands must have an SFK name. As this photo shows, you can even get a hechsher on bacon donuts, you just need an SFK name on the branding. What’s SFK? Internet savvy folks know what NSFW means. It’s not safe for work, a.k.a. pritzus and ...