Jewish Blogs

The Red Skull Scares Me

Confession time: Captain America has never been my favorite superhero. I’m a Marvel boy, tried and true, and even though the X-Men have my heart and most perfectly embody my geekiness, the Avengers, the team that banded together around Captain America and have him as their leader (more or less), are probably my favorite superhero team.So, as you might imagine, ...

The Rebbe and the General

Israeli historian Arie Morgenstern tells of a fascinating difference of opinion between the Lubavitcher Rebbe, z”l, and Moshe Dayan in the current (Winter) issue of Azure. The setting is the Yom Kippur War. Morgenstern, in NY as as emissary of the World Zionist Organization, and Menachem Levin, the Israeli Consul, came to 770 for Simchas Torah. The Rebbe asked that ...

The “real” Sarah Silverman

Last Friday I went to a sold-out book reading in Coolidge Corner. Sarah Silverman, probably the most (in)famous Jewish woman comedian today, was reading from her new memoir, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee. Since she is without a doubt a “Jewess with attitude,” I thought it was important that I be there.Read More: @ jwablog.jwa.orgYou might also like:Earth Day: Honoring ...

The Real Housewives of the Lower East Side

One hundred and ten years ago today, something surprising happened. Jewish immigrant housewives in New York City—concerned and angry about a sharp rise in the price of kosher meat from 12 cents to 18 cents per pound—launched a kosher meat boycott that lasted nearly a month, spread to several other boroughs of New York, sparked violent riots and arrests, and ...

The Raw Story: Tea Party Demagogues’ Strategy – Blame Giffords, Raise Money

We have two political parties in the country: the Democrats and the Demagogues.The official Tea Party line is that Giffords was “asking for it” and that the Tea Party should now use the shooting to raise money. Yes, that is what is reported.Tucson tea party founder says Giffords to blame for getting shot By David EdwardsOne tea party leader says ...

The Ramchal (Derech Hashem) on Yom Kippur

Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato (Ramchal) From Derech Hashem.The significance of Yom Kippur is that God set aside one day for Israel, when their repentance is readily accepted and their aveiros (sins) can easily be erased.Kapora actually erases aveiros, which is way beyond waht Selicha (forgiveness) and Mechila (pardon) accomplish. Yom Kippur is the one day set aside for this Kapora ...

The Quality of Mercy is Not Strained

Yesterday night I went to see The Merchant of Venice at the Public Theater in New York. Shakespeare in the Park is a free program in New York (and many other cities have similar programs). To get tickets, people wait in line for hours and hours. I, for instance, arrived in line at 5:15 in the morning on Monday morning. ...

The profane (Jewish) mother of the Fulton Fish Market

I read very little of yesterday’s NYTimes – too depressing — but I am glad I didn’t give into the impulse to skip it all together. On the inside back page of the National section was a memorable article by Dan Barry about the recent “Death of a Fulton Fish Market Fixture.”The caption under the photograph told me that “known as Annie, ...

The pre-internet gedolim are helping us battle the yetzer harah

Sooner or later, all of the elder gedolim will be gone and we will be faced with a crisis, the crisis I speak of is the fact that most of the elder gedolim are from the times when gedolim still had secular educations and were interested in secular subjects. I was reading about Rav Yaakov recently and the book said ...

The Poetry Writing Process

Marina Blitshteyn is the author of the new poetry chapbook Russian for Lovers. She will be blogging all week for the Jewish Book Council and MyJewishLearning.A confession about my writing/editing process: I have none. Which is to say, I wish I could say something about how regimented I’d been with this project, working a select number of days on select letters, ...

The Pesach Plan

The group of Novardhoker yeshiva bochurim and their rebbe (and his rebbetzin)—along with a number of families—were packed into the train’s stock cars in the summer of 1941. Since Rav Yehudah Leib Nekritz, zt”l, and his talmidim, then in Soviet-conquered Lithuania, had declined the offer of Russian citizenship, the Soviets were providing them an all-expense-paid trip to Siberia. Occasional pieces ...

The personal is political: Rep. Jackie Speier tells her abortion story

Being pro-choice means a lot of things: Above all else, it means supporting a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body during pregnancy, abortion included. But because the stigma surrounding abortion is still so, well, stigmatized, “being pro-choice” is often just an amorphous concept (albeit a powerful one) without real faces or stories behind the crusade to ensure ...