The Manischewitz at my family’s Passover table left a bad taste in my mouth. By the time I was a teenager, I knew I didn’t want it, the jarred gelatinous fish lumps, the giant crackers or any other part of Judaism in my life anymore. Insert decade of drinking and drugs here. I searched, I […]
I have been known to go to the gym for literally 6 minutes at a time. And those are my good days. I spend most of my life on the couch. (Like right now – I’m on the couch. Why do you think I made an entire YouTube show about a woman sitting on a […]
Though in some ways it feels like we’ve been together forever, it’s still new enough that I measure my marriage in days: fourteen. That’s seven loads of laundry, six chicken dinners, five times that we’ve gone into work, four bookcases built, three socks missing their partners, two pots horribly burnt and one Shabbat meal we […]
Dear Jew in the City, The month of Elul is a beautiful concept, but can be hard to relate to. What do I do actionably in Elul? What should we be trying to accomplish pre-teshuva? Best, Matt Dear Matt- Thanks for your question. First, let’s examine what Elul is. You might not realize how much […]
When my father was almost 50 years old, he became an Orthodox Jew. My mother, two years his junior, did too, but she always had a positive association with religious Jews and Judaism. Her “Bubbe” and “Zeide” were frum, spoke only Yiddish, learned Torah, and had long seders. Her love of the alter heim, its food […]
With last week’s release of the 5th installment of Disney’s popular Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, the world once again is fascinated by the corsairs, privateers, and marauders of the golden age of piracy. While there has been talk of Jewish Pirates, few realize that most of these pirates were observant Jews! Professor Steven […]
