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 [email protected].
Debra Nussbaum Cohen
By Debra Nussbaum Cohen
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Life Putting To Bed the Debate Over the Origin of the Seder Plate Orange
Many homes will have oranges on their Seder plates come the first two nights of Passover, starting Monday evening. And there will also be lots of different versions of the story explaining why we put it there. Now Rabbi Andrew Sacks, head of the Conservative movement’s Israeli branch of the Rabbinical Assembly, has laid the…
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Life Sleep-Away Camp for Yiddish-Speaking New Mothers
Reading this article on Slate, reminded me how misplaced our priorities sometime seem to be — with new moms rushed home and right back into their physically and emotionally demanding lives. A week after giving birth to my youngest, a decade ago, I was back at work (though my boss at the time allowed me…
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Life Insisting That Young Girls Dress Like Children — Not Kardashians
Jennifer Moses wrote a recent and much-discussed Wall Street Journal essay titled “Why Do We Let Them Dress Like That?” It opens with the writer listening in on a clutch of 12- and 13-year-old girls in the ladies room at a bat mitzvah party as they discuss other girls. The girls are, as you might…
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News Rabbi Jill Jacobs Will Head Rabbis for Human Rights-North America
Jewish social justice guru Jill Jacobs is known for her vocal advocacy work on behalf of society’s most marginalized, including undocumented workers and the poor. Now, as newly appointed executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America, she will engage with the most incendiary issue in American Jewish life: public criticism of Israel for its…
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News Blood and Boils and Beasts, Oh My!
We’ve been at the Passover Seder of our friends Helen and Tanny for each of the past dozen years. In addition to being full of good fellowship, spirited singing and delectable food, the Seders feature props illustrating the 10 Plagues that are so startling that, some years, my youngest child runs out of our hosts’…
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Life The Jewish Mother’s Guide to College Admissions
I have just emerged from what has felt like the most stressful experience of my adult life. Those of you whose children are high school seniors know exactly what I’m talking about: the college admissions process. Though untold numbers of people go through it each year, the process remains opaque and an emotional rollercoaster. So…
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Life Social Justice, Diversified
Nearly all of those who have already applied to this year’s Jewish Funds for Justice Community Organizing Residency are women. And last year, which was the program’s first, 14 of the 16 people selected for the interfaith program were women. Overall six Jews, six Muslims and four Christians made up the group. COR pairs Community…
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Culture The Passover Cleaning Season Is Upon Us
You know Passover is around the corner when a) you’ve finally finished the last of the chocolate-filled wafers from Purim mishloach manot and b) your friends start kvetching — on Facebook and in person — about the cleaning they have to do. I despise cleaning, and my cleaning lady of several years quit last week…
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