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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Culture Torah Raps:Teaching the Bible Through Music
They may not be Big Boi and Andre 3000 (or even Matisyahu), but to the kids at Jewish day schools and camps who get to rap with Matt Bar and Ori Salzberg, these young Jewish educators are hip-hop stars. The two men call themselves Bible Raps Nation and travel from Jewish camps to Jewish schools…
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Life Female Analysts Taking Their Place at Political Roundtables
Never thought I’d be saying this about Fox News, but I witnessed what may be a watershed moment for women — in a good way — on the Fox Sunday News show “Panel Plus.” The show on August 15 was guest-hosted by Bret Baier and featured four politically conservative talking heads discussing the current news….
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Life Repudiating My Inner Balebuste
The title of Elissa Strauss’ essay in the Forward, “Embracing My Inner Balebuste,” caught my eye. Perhaps it’s a reflection of what I assume are a few years of difference in our age that I find the term “balebuste” loaded with provocative associations and Elissa can embrace the title with pride. On the other hand,…
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Culture The Ties That Bind
What is the essence of Jewish identity? Is it revealed in the choices we make, like giving tzedakah or observing the Sabbath, or is it in our genetic code? Is it a matter of faith, or a matter of heritability? Is it something we can choose, or is it a biological imperative embedded in nearly…
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Culture Rabbis and Halacha Grapple With Advances in DNA Technology
Advances in genetic analysis and its medical applications are bringing unprecedented, if uneven, change to the world of Jewish law. Most often, the matter of genetics is considered in the context of issues on either end of life’s spectrum: those that relate to fertility and to the identification of post-mortem human remains. “DNA analysis is…
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Life On Jennifer Aniston, Lea Michele and Dressing Up as Babs
When I saw Elissa Strauss’ Sisterhood post about the photo spread in Harper’s Bazaar, in which Jennifer Aniston is made up and posed to try and look like Barbra Streisand, I could not believe it. I know she was just trying to look like Streisand, and not pretending she could sound like her, but still….
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Life Why Being ‘Childless by Choice’ Often Reflects Jewish Disengagement
The personal is political, said feminist writer Carol Hanisch back in 1969, and while reading Renee Ghert-Zand’s recent blog post on childbearing, I couldn’t help but think that procreation is political, as well. That’s especially true when it comes to Jewish parenting; anyone who is Jewishly engaged is aware of the cultural/religious imperative to have…
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Life Separation Anxiety: Mine, not Theirs
Girlchik got on the camp bus yesterday with a wave and a smile, happy to head off to overnight camp and into the safe first steps toward independence for which, at 11, she is beginning to hunger. Rockerchik, who is 9, was by turns excited and having separation anxiety, bounding off the bus to give…
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FIRST PERSON As a rabbi, he helped others mourn. So why wouldn’t his daughter say kaddish for him?
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