A few years ago, when my son (then 5) and my daughter (then 8) were playing “mitzvah pirates” – a game they invented where they sailed the seven seas in order to help people – my son took one look at my daughter and told her, “Girls can’t be pirates.” (In his world of “pirates,” […]
Dear Jew in the City- I heard that there is some sort of female Jewish Warrior in the Chanukah story that I never learned about in Hebrew School. What’s this about? Sincerely, Female Fan Dear Female Fan- Great question. Chanukah, as you may be aware, is not overt in Tanach (the Jewish Bible). There […]
Forced modesty clearly subjugates, but what about the pressure to uncover? With summer nearly upon us, newsstands are replete with magazine covers instructing women on how to get the “perfect beach bod,” but this is not a seasonal phenomenon. In an age when gender equality is on everyone’s mind, there is a discrepancy between the […]
I was recently talking to a reporter from a major women’s magazine who’s working on a story about Orthodox women and modest dress, and as I was giving her the lowdown, she commented that I seem so confident about my body. Did dressing modestly help me with that, she wanted to know. It was weird, […]
Last week in Israel, there was a gathering of Charedi rabbis who banned college for women outside of of the “Beis Yaakov” system. Being that I am neither Charedi, nor Israeli, this news did not feel very impactful to me. The Orthodox rabbis that I go to (I’d describe them as “centrist” or “right-wing Modern […]
I’ve always been a music geek, and I don’t mean it in the new fangled we’ve-reclaimed-a-negative-in-order-to-make-a-positive sense of the word. I mean it in the old-school “loser,” “dweeb,” “dork” sense. (Is there a non-dorky way of saying “dork”?!) I always saw other kids – “cooler” kids – who were into music when I was growing up […]
