Today was a typical day: carpool pick-up, after school errands, and a trip to the local pizza store for dinner. When we got out of the car, I grabbed two quarters from my wallet for the parking meter. I handed the first quarter to my younger (four-year-old) daughter who promptly told me, “My sister can go […]
Too often, we see the worst in each other. This is true of all people and especially, and unfortunately, the Jewish people. We see the most extreme and negative element of the communities we don’t belong to while the more moderate and pleasant people among them hide under the radar. We often fail to see […]
Two weeks ago, we released “The Sound of Silence,” and hundreds of thousands of Jews across the internet were on a high. Our world is too constantly connected. People do need some time to unplug. Observant Jews have the secret to a healthy tech-life balance. “Tears, chills, and touched hearts” were reported in comment after comment, and pride in […]
When my father was almost 50 years old, he became an Orthodox Jew. My mother, two years his junior, did too, but she always had a positive association with religious Jews and Judaism. Her “Bubbe” and “Zeide” were frum, spoke only Yiddish, learned Torah, and had long seders. Her love of the alter heim, its food […]
In a world obsessed with devices, it occurred to me that we are living in an age where silence dominates many situations. Silence between couples, silence between families, silence everywhere you turn as people tap, tap, tap on their devices. What an isolating existence. But what if there was an antidote to silence? What if […]
When I was 17 years old, I spent the summer studying in Israel. I knew I wanted to be religious, but at that point, didn’t know in which Orthodox sub-group I belonged. There were so many of them! I spent shabbos with a variety of families, including a charedi Sephardic ba’al teshuva family in Jerusalem. […]
