Jewish Blogs

Poetry, Storytelling, and Multiple Truths on Israel’s Independence Day

As a historian, I spend a lot of time thinking about stories — what stories we tell about ourselves and the world, what stories aren’t told, how our narratives change depending on context, mood, timing.We generally think of history and poetry as very distinct fields — one more straightforward, prose-based, rooted in something we call historical fact; the other more ...

Poetry from Dyanna Loeb, aka Dyna*Mic

Dyanna Loeb aka Dyna*Mic is an MC, poet and arts educator who started performing with Youth Speaks in 2001. She has shared her words and music for international audiences, at venues including the San Francisco Opera House, the Nuyorican (NYC), and Project HeartBeat Jerusalem. Her poetry and songs have been featured on several releases through Youth Movement Records, where she ...

Planting the seed: Memories of “The Feminine Mystique”

There’s a lot of buzz these days about Stephanie Coontz’s new book A Strong Stirring, an assessment of Betty Friedans’s 1963 manifesto The Feminine Mystique. It’s stirring up some personal memories of my own.I was not quite fourteen back in 1964 when an English teacher in our Orthodox day school, a young woman with a sweet sad smile, mentioned a new book that she ...

Picture of the century: The Tznius Ruler

I am quite curious as to where Shmarya from Failed Messiah found this, but nonetheless it rules and I remember in high school meeting frum girls who told me all about these spies that would catch them with skirts that were not regulation length. Click the more tag to see the rest of the picture – it’s really large.Read More: @ ...

Pharaoh Was A Nazi

You know how Godwin’s law says that every internet argument eventually breaks down into someone calling someone else Hitler or a Nazi? This is one of my greatest pet peeves in life, because it’s not just online arguments that devolve into Holocaust finger-pointing…you can find this stuff all over our culture. Want to paint someone as evil? Just connect them ...

Pesach Inspiration

Our Rabbis teach us that Yaakov received the brachot from Yitzchak on the night of Pesach. Yitzchak specifically chose this time because on this night the heavenly vaults of blessing are open. On the outside we may appear like Esav, we may feel very far from Hashem, yet the night of Pesach gives us the strength to transform ourselves into Yaakov. We ...

Personal and Communal Mourning

The Gemara at the end of Taanit cites a famous braita which says that all the mitzvot that are relevant to a mourner are relevant to Tisha B’av. The Rishonim point out this is not always absolute.The Gemara discusses an custom of aveilut (mourning) which used to be practiced by a mourner. This practice is called kfiyat ha’mitah (turning over the bed). Rav Yehuda maintains that this practice ...

Penile Freedom of Choice Protected

The fanatical zealots of the anti-circumcision movement got a bitter taste of their own medicine when Governor Jerry Brown effectively banned circumcision bans in California over the weekend by signing AB768, a bill that precludes local and city governments from establishing legislation that would make it illegal to have a child circumcised.As you may recall, “intactivists” in San Francisco and ...

Paul Simms at New Yorker Imagines God’s Blog

Paul Simms at the New Yorker Imagines God’s Blog. Check out the pseudo-comments.Shouts + MurmursGod’s Blogby Paul SimmsUPDATE: Pretty pleased with what I’ve come up with in just six days. Going to take tomorrow off. Feel free to check out what I’ve done so far. Suggestions and criticism (constructive, please!) more than welcome. God out.Read More: @ tzvee.blogspot.comReaders found more information ...

Paul Rudd–DJ Extraordinaire

Looking back, I didn’t totally enjoy my bar mitzvah party. Mostly because I vomited at it. No, I didn’t have some crazy uncles who brought me to a back room to get me drunk. Nor did I have any crazy friends who brought me to a back room to get me drunk. Nor did I have parents who brought me ...

Pastor Henry Covington Dies

Mitch Albom has been writing more eulogies lately than most rabbis. I was deeply moved Sunday after reading Albom’s beautiful memorial for his sister (technically his wife’s sister, but he lovingly removed the “in-law” title), who died after battling breast cancer recently.Yesterday, Albom traveled to New York City with Reverend Henry Covington to appear on NBC’s “Today Show” together. Covington, ...

Passports, Provisos and Photo Captions

When you stop to think about it, the fact that so much of the world’s attention—not to mention so much jealousy, anger and irrationality—has for so many years been so keenly focused on so small a piece of real estate as Yerushalayim is astounding.Actually, in a certain way it’s enthralling too, demonstrating as it so powerfully does how special the ...