Jewish Blogs

Shmura Matzas, Shmura Heart

Passover and preparing for Passover Seder night begin with Breslev Israel.Don’t be overwhelmed by Pesach; stick with us and everything will fall into place. First of all, the Pesach Overview is a brief summary of the basics in preparing for and observing the holiday. The Seder overviewwill help you prepare for and understand the Seder. In our Pesach Page, you’ll find dozens of articles and stories ...

Shivas Irons’ Golf in the Kingdom Comes to Film

The Times starts its meaty article about the long-awaited film version of Michael Murphy’s famous golf novel, Golf in the Kingdom by saying that the book is “practically a sacred text.” We think that they mean that it has mystical and philosophical qualities, that people read the book with veneration, and that it addresses ultimate issues of life and meaning. Indeed, like ...

Shidduch phone call – you’re 6 feet tall right

I got a phone call today from a random 718 number, being that I rarely get any phone calls anymore since I moved west I picked it up and on the other end of the line I heard what I could imagine was one of those mixes between yeshivish and Chassidish guys from Boro Park telling me that my father ...

Shidduch Market goes wild after OMG ban

The shidduch market has been taking a wild ride this week after Rav Ovadia Yosef announced that Jews should never say “oh my God”. The ban sent shidduch markets around the world into a wild downturn as folks in shidduchim tried to erase any evidence of them ever having said oh my God, oh my Gosh or OMG. OnlySimchas.com went ...

Shidduch Crisis Anonymous

Shidduch Crisis Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from the Shidduch Crisis. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop being single. There are no dues or fees for SCA membership; we are self-supporting ...

She’s Got A Ticket To Ride

Are women in Chassidic communities nothing more than oppressed victims? Is the Haredi threat to civil liberties in Israel, which is represented by segregated busses, real?I am going to Israel, at the very least, to find out about the second question.As a rabidly liberal Jewess (I am president of the unaffiliated Congregation Etz Chayim in Palo Alto), I am interested ...

She’s four years older than me

Being a BT with an immigrant background, I know that I’m better off dating someone from my own community than an “American.” But I keep an open mind, and whether I go for the ger, or go for the gerusha, to me a Jew is a Jew. So imagine my surprise when a friend recommended me a match to a ...

Sheldon Yellen – CEO and Mensch

Yesterday morning, we heard the words from the Torah portion Ki Tavo, which included the blessing that God shall make us the head and not the tail. This blessing is often repeated on Rosh Hashanah Eve and some even have the head of a fish on their holiday dinner table as a reminder of this blessing. According to the Torah, it ...

Shavuot Is Over, Time To Think About Sukkot

The reason you might want to start planning so far in advance is because there’s an awesome contest going on with a deadline of August 1st: ‘Sukkah City: New York City’ will re-imagine this ancient phenomenon, develop new methods of material practice and parametric design, and propose radical possibilities for traditional design constraints in a contemporary urban site. Twelve finalists ...

Sharon Brous: On Honors and Journeys

There’s been a lot of press about Rabbi Sharon Brous lately, since she became the first woman to crack the top 5 on the Newsweek America’s Top 50 Rabbis list. Of course, this wasn’t the first recognition of Brous for her work building IKAR, a vital and exciting Jewish community in Los Angeles; she’s already been recognized by the Forward, ...

Sharing the stories of Katrina’s Jewish Voices

Click to EnlargeThis weekend we lead up to the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans on the morning of August 29th, 2005 killing more than 1,700 people and displacing hundreds of thousands. The media is marking this occasion: The Today Show is live from New Orleans this morning; the Hurricane is a “Times Topic” on nytimes.com; PBS ...

Shaq Joins The Hebrew Craze

I’m going to be honest. I hate everything about Shaquille O’Neal. He’s cocky. He’s arrogant. He thinks he is funnier than he is. And most of all, he was a member of the Los Angeles Lakers. But I guess when he makes some Jewish references, it’s my duty to tell you about it. So here we go. A couple months ...