Dear Allison, I have really enjoyed reading all your articles and watching your videos — they answer many questions (some that I didn’t even know I had). One of the many things you’re good at is explaining the idea of modesty within the Jewish tradition. I recently had a Sabbath meal with a somewhat […]
Although my knowledge of Spanish does not exceed the vocabulary used in Dora the Explorer, this past Friday afternoon, when we arrived at Rabbi Bentzion Klatzko’s house for Shabbos and he told me, “Mi casa es su casa,” even I knew what he was talking about. Though “mi casa es su casa” is not a Hebrew phrase, it […]
I’ll call her Lindsay in order to protect the innocent; the only one really guilty of anything was me. You see, I found Lindsay to be annoying — like really, really annoying. The very sight of her drinking water made my skin crawl. Well, it wasn’t just the way she drank the water, it was […]
Dear Jew in the City, I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but do you really think that just because you abstain from eating pork and the animal is killed in a certain fashion that brings you real closeness to God? Jesus said that nothing from the outside can make you “unclean,” only your inner thoughts and […]
The idea that the Jewish nation considers itself to be the “chosen people” is something that rubs many people the wrong way. Such a term smacks of elitism and supremacy. Do we Jews really believe that we have some innate quality that makes us a “master race?” Upon examining a famous midrash (a commentary to the Bible based on exegesis, […]
My parents made me a big bat mitzvah – like black-tie-affair-on-a-yacht-cruising-around-Manhattan-harbor-with-a-hundred-and-fifty-of-our-closest-family-and-friends big. But they weren’t just the people that planned the party and paid for it. They saw me through all my years of Hebrew school and bat mitzvah lessons. They helped me write my speeches and made me practice them. And although we had […]
