Mark Binder
By Mark Binder
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News Bar Mitzvah Planning (Or Not)
Every time I think about my son Max’s upcoming bar mitzvah, I temporarily freeze. My brain just locks up as I try to wrap it around the concept of putting together a fancy-shmancy shindig for hundreds and hundreds of people. It’s not that I don’t want Max to have a good time. It’s just the…
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Culture Dressing Up: A Short Story
Every year the villagers of Chelm held a Purim parade and it caused trouble for months. Many people around the world consider the Chelmener to be fools, but they are not. They are, however, very specific and honest. So, when you dress them up in different costumes, they often become frightened and confused. One year…
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News The Little Boy Who Loved Hamantaschen
Once upon a time, there was a little boy who loved hamantaschen. He loved hamentaschen so much that he would eat any kind. (A hamantasch, as you probably know, is a special kind of a filled cookie baked for Purim and shaped like a triangle to commemorate Haman’s three-cornered hat. Haman, of course, was the…
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News That Hanukkah Business
Every Tuesday morning in the village of Chelm, Reb Cantor the merchant and Rabbi Yohon Abrahms the schoolteacher (and mashgiach) went for an early morning walk. They met in the village square when it was still black out, squinting up at the sky as the sun crept up inch by inch over the Black Forest,…
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News Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s selection as JTS commencement speaker roils graduating class
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Opinion I’m an Orthodox student in NYC. I’m grateful Mamdani vetoed the school buffer bill
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Fast Forward Jewish real estate magnate Steven Roth likens Mamdani’s ‘tax the rich’ rhetoric to ‘from the river to the sea’