“I heard you don’t work Friday nights,” showrunners said to Shabbat observant Jeff Astrof of Friends. Astrof was explicit about his priority: Shabbat. The biggest television show could wait. Hear from Astrof, who attended our recent Jew In the City Media Awards at Lincoln Center.
When Orthodox Jewish U.S. Army Specialist Daniel Agami was killed by an improvised IED in Iraq, he was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart among several other honors, and his parents earned the designation of being Gold Star Parents. Despite this bittersweet distinction, his mother Beth Agami’s deep faith in Hashem has allowed her journey to […]
Eighteen years ago, I sat nervously in my doctor’s office. It was a cold and sterile place. Under the fluorescent lights, as I watched the clock tick by, I felt uneasy and unable to sit still. I came in because at age 36, while I was pregnant with my youngest daughter, I experienced strange numbness […]
Everyone’s talking about Nobody Wants This – the rom-com with “the hot rabbi” who loves being Jewish, the shiksa goddess who has a refreshing curiosity for his faith, and some nagging, stereotypical Jewish women and their henpecked husbands. While the series makes some improvements in Jewish representation, there are numerous problematic elements to the story. […]
When Orthodox Jewish All Star Estee Ackerman was an 11-years-old, she sat out her final match at the 2012 U.S. National Table Tennis Championships because the game was scheduled for Shabbos, and they wouldn’t accommodate her. She made international news from that decision. Throughout her career, including missing out on Olympics trials, Estee has always […]
When picturing an Orthodox Jewish woman, most people conjure up an image of a lady carrying a baby, not a gun. But for Ariella Loew, it seemed like there was no reason she couldn’t do both! Loew grew up in Lincolnwood, just outside of Chicago in an Orthodox family and though she had never seen […]
