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Three Men and a Mikvah Part 1
Photo from ynet.co.il A few days ago, I wrote a post about Yeshivat Maharat and the communal need for ordained orthodox Jewish female leaders. One of the points I mentioned was that women who practice...
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Three Men and a Mikvah Part 2
Photo from ynet.co.il – mikvah attendant and rabbis What follows is a continuation of my post from yesterday. I was adopted as a baby from the Jewish Children’s Bureau of Chicago to a non religious...
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Saving Face – Teint Idole Ultra 24H
Voices call like distant ringing Winding up my duplex steps The clock is winding down and bringing The time for flames to stretch and flex Steam puffs smoky on my mirror My son calls for his hat and...
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Beauty and the Bar Mitzvah
Photo from fabulousmag.co.uk After my tongue-in-cheek poem about Rorie Weisberg on Friday, I wanted to write down some serious thoughts on the matter. My first reaction to Mrs. Weisberg’s lawsuit,...
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Marriage as a Cure-All in the Jewish Orthodox Community
Photo from now.msn.com There is a generally accepted concept in the orthodox Jewish community, that whatever ails a young person can be cured by getting married. If a person is rebellious,...
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Yom Yerushalayim – A Day of Unity
Photo from zalmi.blogspot.com Today is Yom Yerushalayim, also known as Jerusalem Day. Yom Yerushalyim commemorates Jerusalem’s reunification in 1967. This day begins on the 28th day of the month of...
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Spies Like Us
Photo from winnipegfreepress.com Twenty years ago, when my grandmother A”H, heard that I was moving to an orthodox community, she said, “Be prepared for everyone to get into your business.” I had to...
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Now They Want Them to Pray in Public?
Photo from blog.myjli.com Haaretz reports that Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman has instructed the principals of girls’ seminaries in the Jerusalem area to send their students to conduct prayer services at...
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Kosher Jews?
Photo from mspkosher.org Reading a Jewish Press article the other week on the Women of the Wall controversy, one phrase stood out. It was in this paragraph - “A senior UTJ source told Kikar Hashabbat...
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Shabbos Makeup for Dummies
Photo from blog.showmakeup.com I just read two crazy articles in the Daily Mail and New York Post that discuss ways to make cosmetics last throughout Shabbos and Yom Tov. The articles interview...
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When Herschel Met Sari……
Many people have seen the 1989 movie, When Harry Met Sally. One of the main conversations that takes place in the movie is the subject of whether or not men and women can be friends. See this pivotal...
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Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Managing Abusers From Within The Community
Rabbi Gedalyah Dov Schwartz, is the Av Beis Din of the Chicago Rabbinical Council and the Rabbinical Council of America. He is a big advocate of the concept, “If you know something, say something,”...
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Leah Vincent: It’s All About Perspective
I wanted to jot down a quick thought about the sad story of Leah Vincent. Leah Vincent was recently interviewed on the Katie Couric show about her escape from ultra orthodox Judaism: From accounts of...
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Jewish Missionaries
Photo from wrongsideoftheart.com I recently found an interesting blog written by Rebecca M. Ross, entitled Stop Kiruv Now. Her blog discusses the pitfalls of the Jewish kiruv (“bringing close” in...
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Deifying Gedolim
Image from doubtingfaith.com This summer has been a whirlwind of activity, with hardly any time to formulate a coherent thought in my own head, much less put one down on paper. However, there have...
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I’m (Halachically) Yours
Now I can’t get that tune from Jason Mraz out of my head I decided to write about post about a website called, Halachically Yours, that states it’s purpose as being: “…a workshop and collection of...
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Is the OTD community another religion in disguise?
The more I read about the off the derech (OTD) community, the more I realize that the only folks who truly go off the derech are the ones who simply fade out to nothing. Those folks don’t go to...
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Frum Gay Girl: Chicago LGBT Activist, Goldie Goldbloom
I was surprised this morning to read an article in the Windy City Times about frum gay activist, Goldie Goldbloom, who recently gave a lecture, sponsored by Lavender University, on being gay in the...
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Virtual Kehilla – How Social Media is Taking Beth Din Disputes to the Streets
Taking it to the streets….doing it old school with the Doobie Brothers, but I digress….. There have long been grumblings in 20th and 21st century America that beth dins (Jewish courts made up of three...
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Shmiras Einayim – Try it, You’ll Like It!
There have been a number of recent pleas to the Jewish women of the orthodox community to tighten up their observance of tznius. The exhortations range from the sublime to the ridiculous. In every...
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