Debra Nussbaum Cohen is an award-winning journalist and the author of Celebrating Your New Jewish Daughter: Creating Jewish Ways to Welcome Baby Girls into the Covenant. Follow her on Instagram @debranc or email her at dncnews@icloud.com.
Debra Nussbaum Cohen
By Debra Nussbaum Cohen
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Life Kosher Shades of Grey
As The New York Times magazine recently noted in a mini-article titled “50 Shades of Oy Vey,” the popular romance novel “Fifty Shades of Grey” has been, shall we say, a hit in the Orthodox Jewish world, with its tale of erotic submission. Gavriel, owner of the website Kosher Sex Toys, has gotten requests for…
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Life Why Our Daughters Should Learn to Use Tefillin
Shortly before Boychik’s bar mitzvah, which was a few years back, his zeyde bought him tefillin. I have sweet photos of my (Haredi) father-in-law showing him how to put them on for the first time. At the time, we were well aware that the scene would not be repeated with Girlchik as she prepared for…
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News Tefillin for Women, by Women
When Molly Moses graduated from Harvard University in 2011, she wanted to pray each day wearing tefillin. But she couldn’t afford the several hundred dollar investment required to buy a pair of the leather-covered boxes, which contain tiny parchments with handwritten Torah verses. Moses had borrowed tefillin from friends in the past; now she wanted…
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Life Etan Patz and the End of Hope
When I heard the news that Etan Patz’s killer had confessed to the police, my heart sank. One would imagine there might be relief that this 33-year-old case, which changed laws and altered the way many of us would come to mother our children, could finally be considered solved. And yet. Yet my heart plummeted…
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Life Adrianne Jeffries: A 21st-Century Yentl
It’s Yentl for the 21st century. A female reporter from The New York Observer’s tech blog, BetaBeat, snuck into Sunday’s ultra-Orthodox, men-only rally against the dangers of the Internet by dressing up — apparently rather convincingly — as a man. Adrianne Jeffries bought a pair of cheap loafers at Payless, borrowed her brother’s white dress…
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Life Dirty Prayerbooks? Blame Women
Ah, the holy tears of Jewish women who weep while praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Not holy, says the holy site’s chief rabbi. Instead, says Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, women’s tears are responsible for the high level of fecal contamination found in the prayer books at the Wall, or kotel, even those that are…
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Life Haredi Dolls Show Boys Learning, Girls Serving
It’s not even Shavuot, but if you’re already worrying about what to give the Haredi children in your life for Hanukkah, not to worry: Mitzvah Kinder dolls are here. As reported recently on Failed Messiah, the little plastic figurines come pre-labeled with various tasks for boys and girls, Totty [Daddy] and Mama. In one set…
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Life The End of Women-Only Torah Study?
It is a sad week for women’s Torah study, with the news that the Advanced Talmudic Institute at Matan — founded 24 years ago by Rabbanit Malke Bina — is closing its doors. Matan did not confirm its reason for closing, but I suspect that the approaching sunset of one of its main funders, the Avi Chai…
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