Jewish Blogs

Our Bodies, Our Moms

Last Sunday on Postsecret, someone sent in a postcard (pictured right) about mothers, daughters, and body image. I think most can relate to the anonymous author of the Postsecret card. When mothers struggle with their own body image, their insecurities are often passed down to their daughters. In 2010, Peggy Orenstein tackled the difficult issue of food, weight and motherhood ...

OU sponsors Long Island wife swapping event

Sisterhood of Great Neck Synagogue and the Orthodox Union cordially invite you to: A Couples Night OutIntimacy in Marriage …Maintaining that Romantic Spark Over Time and trying new things with other people.Guest Speaker: Rachel Pill, LCSWFree Admission (Reservations Required: Space is Limited, please send pic)(516)487-6100Sushi Chef and Sexy Dessert Reception: Hot Chani’s will relish in our low fat and low ...

OU admits that Jewish teens have sex

It’s real nice to see that at orthodox organization is approaching the idea of abstinence, whether or not I agree or disagree is not the point, the point is that they have enough balls to acknowledge that unmarried folks in the frum community are going to be doing rocking it in the biblical sense prior to marriage.So while the agudah ...

Orthodox shul is going to allow women to lead kabalas shabbos

So Avi Weiss can’t get the go ahead to ordain women as Rabbis (would he call them Rabbits to be that much more Zionist?), but apparently they are cool with him letting them lead kabalas shabbos and I’m down with that. I’m all for letting the girls out of the kitchen to rock the lecha dodi if they want to, ...

Orange Rind Candle Centerpiece For Tu B’Shevat

Ever heard of candles made from orange rinds? Or candles made from clementine rinds? Great idea right, especially now that Tu B’Shevat (Feb. 8th) is right around the corner! Basically, according to the original source, one carefully removes the fruit, leaving the two halves intact, and when you are careful not to sever the stem that’s connected to the top ...

Optimal Environment – Appreciating Eretz Yisrael: Holy Land, Holy People #3

The Arizal taught that the place where one lives has a spiritual effect. A society builds its unique aspects based on the physical place where it is located. This in turn influences the nation on a spiritual level. Chazal tell us that each land has an officer in heaven that guards it. The officer of Eretz Yisrael is Hashem himself. A Jew ...

Optimal Environment: Appreciating Eretz Yisrael

The first verse in the Torah is, “Bereishet bara Elokim. In the beginning, Hashem created heaven and earth.” Rashi explains bereishit to mean, bishvil reishit. The purpose of creation was Torah and KlalYisrael, who are reishit. He further adds that Hashem specifically began with the story of creation rather than with the first mitzva of kiddush hachodesh to emphasize that Hashem is Master of the world and that the ...

Oprah and the Hasidic Ladies

Tonight, OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, is airing the second part in its “Hasidic Jews of Brooklyn” special. Oprah visits Crown Heights, and after last night’s episode where she toured a Chabad family’s home, tonight she sits down with a quartet of Hasidic women for an in-depth interview about sex, children, spirituality, and good wigs.Over at Tablet Rachel Shukert has ...

Open Source Gets Closed Down

Richard Stallman can rightly be described as the father of the open-source movement. He created the GNU Project, which aimed to create a free Unix-compatible operating system (finally completed when Linus Torvalds used GNU development tools to create his Linux kernel) and founded the Free Software Foundation.Stallman was programming before companies thought about restricting access to their code, and has ...

Open Letter to Glenn Beck

Glenn Beck:George Soros, who as a child in Hungary survived the Holocaust by living with a non-Jewish family “used to go around with this anti-Semite and deliver papers to the Jews and confiscate their property and then ship them off. And George Soros was part of it. He would help confiscate the stuff. It was frightening. Here’s a Jewish boy ...

Online Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur Kol Nidre Services, on Video, on a Live Webcast

Our sincere and heartfelt best wishes to all our readers for a Year of Blessing and Health, Prosperity and Good Cheer.Rosh Hashanah 5773 – 2012 falls on Monday, the 17th of September and will continue for 2 days until Tuesday, the 18th of September.Yom Kippur 5773 – 2012 falls on Wednesday, the 26th of September.From Los Angeles come Rosh Hashanah ...

Online Classes To Prepare for the High Holidays

We’re excited to announce that this year, to help you get ready for the High Holiday season, here at MJL we’re offering three live, interactive, online courses.Holiday Basics50 Ways to Use a Shofar: The Symbolism and Stories Behind the Ram’s HornIn this class we’ll explore the multiple symbolic meanings of the shofar, from Maimonides’ understanding of the shofar as a ...