Dear Jew in the City, I feel a little hopeless.  On Yom Kippur, we say sorry for all the things we did wrong and try not to do them again for the coming year.  But really, we all know that is impossible- no matter how hard we try, we’ll be saying the same things next […]

Dear Jew in the City, I am a 21 year old Jew born and raised in New Jersey.  I went to Hebrew school and had my Bar Mitzvah at a conservative temple.  My parents are secular, and I’ve been living a secular life.  Over the past three years in college, I’ve become close with a […]

Dear Allison, I really enjoy your articles and Q&A’s. I was hoping you might be able to lend some insight to my conundrum. I come from an interfaith family (my mother is Catholic and my father is Reform). Since my mother was far more religious, they decided I would be raised Catholic. We still celebrated […]

  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 […]

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 […]

Dear Jew in the City, Why is there such hatred towards Orthodox and Chasidic Jews? As I pursue becoming observant, I have received many negative comments about the Orthodox, especially the Chasidic, from fellow Jews in particular. Why is this? I don’t understand. Can you shed some light on this. Thanks, Shelley