“I feel like I can speak dog,” Chomie Gross says. It’s a pretty shocking statement coming from someone who had a severe fear of canines for most of her life. Now, Chomie, 34, is not only a dog lover, but trains them for a living. “I never saw this coming, and I never knew it […]
Many think they know about Orthodox Judaism thanks to TV shows like “Unorthodox” and “My Unorthodox Life,” a.k.a. media that shows off the community in a negative light without any sort of context that these are dysfunctional families. But where are the stories of inspiration? Where are honest, nuanced alternative narratives to balance that out? […]
Zelda Lebovits — a.k.a. @zeldahair on Instagram — became famous for the natural looking wigs she sold that adorned the heads of chic, observant Jewish women. She was a pro at making the mitzvah of hair covering just a little bit easier where women could still feel like themselves. With time, she started peeling back the layers […]
Matan Kahana, the deputy Minister of Religious Services to the Israeli Knesset, announced on June 2 that he would hire women in Jewish leadership positions for communities across Israel. In what capacity? Advisers of Jewish law relating to mikvah, or yoatzot halacha. Recently, there has been a growing demand among Orthodox Jewish women — particularly […]
Many people have had their credit card number stolen by a scammer. Some have had their identities used by a fraud on social media. But what if a highly skilled con-artist convinced countless people that he was part of your family as he pathologically lied, seduced, stole, and left a wake of destruction, moving from […]
About a decade ago, when chromosomal testing first came out, Lara Diamond, a Baltimore-based genealogist decided to do some DNA tests. She was in search of long lost relatives, but her query eventually produced something even more valuable than reconnecting with family – her own life being saved. Diamond explains, “There were earlier tests that weren’t […]
