Frimet Goldberger
By Frimet Goldberger
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Life Shape Shifting
Getty Images We live in a world over-saturated with messages about flawless skin, slim waists, perky breasts and perfectly shaped bottoms. But until my twenties, I did not know this world. My ideals of beauty were not shaped by Marilyn Monroe and Angelina Jolie; beauty standards in the Hasidic world I grew up in are…
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Life Real Heroines of Pesach Prep
Martyna Starosta // A woman hired to clean a Hasidic home before Pesach “Thank God I don’t need to get a goyte this year,” I shout from the living room, as I’m adding, for the umpteenth time, another grocery item to the shared google doc titled “Orlando Grocery List” — Orlando is where my family…
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Life Rabbis Gone Wild — About Modesty and (Gasp!) Zumba
Thinkstock // One Orthodox Rabbi has strongly condemned Zumba classes. In recent years, a slew of savvy Orthodox rabbis have taken to condemning women for everything they do. Their brilliant speeches can be found on YouTube and other websites, and have made their rounds on social media. The topics of their impassioned speeches run the…
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Life Pesach Prep Is a Marathon for Hasidic Women
Thinkstock It’s that time of year — the time I expect the smell of Murphy’s Oil Soap and chlorine to waft through the windows of every home. It’s my favorite time of the year, too, from my earliest memories. No, I’m not referring to spring and the anticipation of warm weather, but to Pesach —…
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Culture Deborah Feldman Isn’t Telling You the Whole Story
● Exodus By Deborah Feldman Blue Rider Press, $26.95, 288 pages While Jews around the world are preparing to retell the story of their ancestral exodus from Egypt, another story of an exodus is making its way onto bookshelves. Deborah Feldman, the 27-year-old author of the 2012 best-selling memoir “Unorthodox,” is releasing her second memoir,…
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Life I’m Moving Back to Kiryas Joel
Getty Images // Families in Kiryas Joel Recently, while sitting at a relative’s wedding in Kiryas Joel and picking at the soggy stuffing under the skin of the chicken thigh and listening to the gossip around me, I had an epiphany: I really, badly miss Kiryas Joel. So, when I got home and kicked off…
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Life My Most Important Friendships
Thinkstock Female friendships are difficult to understand. The bonds that women forge — the really close friendships — are almost invincible. Although I hesitate at stereotyping female friendships, I nevertheless believe some of the stereotypes to be true. Maybe it’s because I have recently realized that my daughter is treating her friendships differently than my…
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Life Requiem for a Sheitel Makher
Sheitels, or wigs for Orthodox women, come in different colors and styles to match women’s preferences — they are short and neat, long and wavy, matronly and sexy. Maintaining the freshness and vibrancy of a sheitel requires a skilled sheitel makher, a wig stylist. It’s a demanding job that calls for loads of patience, talented…
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