The little-known Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer starts tonight and goes through tomorrow. This day of late-spring fun interrupts a period of national mourning for the Jewish people. How did this annual pre-Memorial Day festival come to be? Two thousand years ago, the great Torah sage Rabbi Akiva, who was considered to be the best teacher of […]

Dear Jew in the City, What’s the deal with kitniyos? Especially being that we know now it’s not chametz, and some Jews eat it and some don’t… Sincerely, Rice on Pesach Dear Rice, Kitniyos (or kitniyot) is typically translated as “legumes” and the Ashkenazi practice is not to eat them on Passover. This isn’t because we used to […]

  Dear Jew in the City, I heard that the Torah says that a woman must marry her rapist and that a father can sell his daughter into slavery? How can we possibly accept such horrible ideas in the modern world? Sincerely, Biblical Inequality   Dear Inequality, That’s a great question. It is true that […]

Dear Jew in the City, Thank you for all of your posts and videos — they have been unfailingly helpful as I have been trying to navigate the often-confusing ba’alas teshuvah process. Here is a question I have for you, though. How do you respond when people claim that Judaism and the “old testament” are […]

Dear Jew in the City, How do I raise my kids to be respectful of Christmas yet not have Christmas-envy? People always seem to go to one extreme or the other, but I’d like to give over a nuanced perspective to my children. Sincerely, Holiday Cheer Dear Cheer, That’s a great question. I’m no parenting expert, […]

Dear Jew in the City, On a recent flight after dealing with hours of a cancelation, a reschedule and then a delay, I finally boarded the plane with numerous other exhausted passengers. I noticed quite a few fellow Orthodox Jews on this flight, the one closest to me was a twenty-something guy with a short […]