Several years ago, I was at a conference, and a guy at my table started up with me after he found out that I was observant. “I’m not religious,” he began, “but I get Shabbat. I see the value in kosher. But that whole no touching before marriage thing that you Orthodox Jews do – that […]

*Author’s name has been changed to protect anonymity. When I finally came to terms with the fact that I was going to have to go through with a get (Jewish divorce), I did some research and quickly learned that there isn’t a lot of information out there apart from some awful films and some sites which […]

Jew in the City was founded in order to break down stereotypes about the Orthodox community and publicize all the positive news about religious Jews that rarely makes the news. But about a year ago I realized that some of the negative ideas people have about our community aren’t based on “bad apples” or misconceptions. They’re […]

The New York Times magazine recently published an article about an Orthodox Jewish sex therapist who helps women in the Orthodox community (they spoke mostly of her Haredi clientele) with intimacy issues. Besides the troubling word choices used by the author, like “tainted” to describe how Orthodox Jews consider a woman who’s in niddah and […]

If you’re a person who cares about negative stories involving Orthodox Jews in the news, the recent agunah cases that keep popping up are quite troubling. If you’re a person who cares about people, ALL agunah cases are quite troubling. Since I am both, I have been pretty bummed out lately about how to deal with […]

In both Jew in the City and my day job, I receive a surprising number of inquiries about conversion. While Judaism accepts converts, we discourage them because taking on Judaism is such a huge commitment. If someone wasn’t born Jewish, they have no obligation to assume all that responsibility. Judaism does not require others to […]