While I stand by the content of this article, I recognize that people may have drawn some incorrect correlations between what I wrote, and the events that unfolded on June 30th (the day the article was published). When we experience a tragedy like the murder of three of teenagers, we feel the import http://shma.com/files/category/sblog/of the … More »
Talmud Yerushalmi, Kiddushin 4:12 :ר’ חזקיה רבי כהן בשם רב: אסור לדור בעיר שאין בה לא רופא, ולא מרחץ, ולא ב”ד מכין וחובשין. אמר ר’ יוסי בי ר’ בון אף אסור לדור בעיר שאין בה גינוניתא של ירק Rabbi Hezekiah and Rabbi Kohen in the name of Rav said: It is forbidden to live in a city … More »
From my office window in Boro Park, I see Hasidim buying flowers and carrying challahs. Girls in long skirts and leather shoes talk in front of brownstone stoops, covering their mouths as if embarrassed by their giggles. “Es iz tsayit tsu geyn a haym,” my supervisor tells me. “It’s time to go home, Yoni. A … More »
We came from the desert. Kind of, as the pre-Jewish tribes ranged across sections of Judea and Mesopotamia in an era when the Middle East was likely a bit greener than it is today, and life was still not easy. Our communities began as semi-nomadic groups, herding, then tilling, practicing disparate religious customs until one … More »
I live in a neighborhood of churches. Within a two block radius of my home you can find the United House of Prayer for All People, Mount Joy Soul Saving Station, Church of the Living God, Third Street Church of God, Galbraith AME Zion Church, Church of God and Saints of Christ (Temple Beth El), … More »
Places mean different things to different people. In the early aughts, I lived in West Hollywood, California, one of the most prominently gay-friendly cities in the United States. (Best and cheapest haircuts I ever had.) During a visit back East to Massachusetts, I visited my Russian émigrés cousins. When I told them where I lived, they … More »
Once upon a time, I was a Jewish suburban girl…hard to believe, right? But my world consisted of a small neighborhood with a big mall. I walked to the mall three blocks away first as 4th or 5th grader to buy jelly bellys with my friend. Next, in junior high I was dropped off by … More »
Near dawn I am roused by voices speaking outside my window. It is Edmond Jabes and Max Jacob – they’ve been carousing in the streets, singing patriotic French ballads, and whistling at passersby. Their chatter inspires me. I wash my face and brush my teeth. I listen to the local radio, trying to orient myself … More »
Why would an upper middle class girl from sunny Los Angeles choose to move to Israel? What is clear from the tears, shock and general mystification around our choice to move our young family is that aliyah was not the intended consequence of the Israel education I received at my Jewish Day School, summer camp, … More »