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Girls Just Want To Have Fun
Cyndi Lauper said it best when she sang her iconic 80’s hit, “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.” Jewish, non-Jewish, Reform, or Haredi – girls just want to have fun. They want to listen to music, hang out...
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Throwback Thursday – Girls Take to the Stage
A commenter recently asked me if I still had the same positive opinion about single sex education as I did in my 2007 post, Girls Take to the Stage. The answer is yes. Something strange happens to...
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It’s Not You, It’s Me
Have you ever heard the breakup line, “It’s not you, it’s me?” If you were on the receiving end of such a speech, you clung to that sentiment with every fiber of your being. If you were on the giving...
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Cutting Our Losses and Saving Ourselves
A book review of ‘Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood,’ by Leah Vincent. The internet has been buzzing for quite some time about Leah Vincent’s recently released memoir....
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Recoloring My Picture of Racism
I grew up a minority in my old Chicago neighborhood in East Rogers Park. “White girl” was a term that I heard often, and not in a friendly way. Being Jewish made me even more of a minority, although...
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Burkini Beach Party
Tznius is as much a mechanism to control the way a woman dresses as it is a method to control her behavior. I once read an article about women petitioning to join the all male Jewish volunteer EMT...
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Throwback Thursday – Equal Pay for Equal Work Doesn’t Apply for Day Schools
Today’s Throwback Thursday post is one that I wrote in 2007 about female Jewish day school teachers not getting paid as much as their male counterparts. I was reminded of this post because of...
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Missing the point of the game
The news has been buzzing for the last month about Salanter Akiba Riverdale High School (SARS), a modern Orthodox yeshiva in Riverdale, New York, allowing two female students to begin wearing tefillin...
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Is it worthwhile to be religious?
Someone sent me a message asking why being religious is worthwhile to me. While they appreciate that my blog comes from the perspective of an Orthodox person who is still aware of the flaws that exist...
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A Mother’s Prayer
My back aches as I lean over the crib to put the baby down for her nap. As her eyes pop briefly open upon contact with the mattress, I quickly scuttle out of the room like a crab and softly shut the...
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Random Acts of Donuts
A few years ago, I was waiting in line at my local kosher Dunkin Donuts drive thru for my coffee. As I sat in my car, it occurred to me that I might be able to brighten someone’s day by paying for...
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Rethinking Special Education in Jewish Day Schools – Inclusion is Key
Baila hunches down into her seat in her 2nd grade classroom. Her teacher is leading a math game on the blackboard to see who can solve 2 digit addition and subtraction problems the fastest. The girls...
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Be My Secret Jewish Valentine
When my husband and I started dating, I couldn’t wait until Valentine’s Day. Although I had dated other guys before meeting him, the timing of my short lived relationships never fell during...
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Throwback Thursday – She doesn’t need to know that….
I recently read about the case of a young agunah whose husband purposely hid the fact that he had Multiple Sclerosis before they were married. In fact, he even went to his parents’ house daily to take...
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Interview with a Gur hassid – an awkward foray into a Gur hassid’s wedding night
Recently, I had the privilege to interview Gur hassid, Rafi Boimiben. Mr. Boimiben was a recent candidate in Jerusalem’s municipal elections, but he was reportedly pressured to withdraw by his...
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Acceptable Vices
An article caught my attention today in The Daily Mail. It is a photo essay of the wedding of a young haredi couple in Jerusalem’s Mea Shearim neighborhood. There are many lovely pictures in the...
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Throwback Thursday – Cultural Differences
These days I seem to be pondering the cultural differences between modern orthodox Judaism and ultra orthodox Judaism. Yesterday’s post that featured photos of haredi children smoking at a Mea Shearim...
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Romance Interruptus
Upon getting engaged to be married, one of the first anxieties an orthodox bride faces is whether or not she will have a chuppat niddah (either be menstruating or in the seven day time frame following...
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Book Excerpt – Oria’s Song
Below is an excerpt from a fiction book idea that I’ve been playing around with for awhile. I figured I’d post part of it here, just for giggles. Oria Monarch is a fictional character. She is the...
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Lady Pants
Yesterday a friend forwarded me an article in the Times of Israel, “My thigh length modest skirt.” In the article the author, Lottie Kestenbaum, points out how laughable it is that a woman who wears...
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