Melissa Langsam Braunstein
By Melissa Langsam Braunstein
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Life A Rosh Hashanah Plea for More Conversation About Infertility
She laughed. When our matriarch Sarah heard that she would become a mother within the next year, she laughed. And who wouldn’t? The whole notion seemed drawn from the realm of fantasy. After all, Sarah was already 90-years-old. But as G-d rhetorically asks Abraham in Genesis 18:13, “Is anything beyond Hashem?” Pregnancy and (safe) childbirth…
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Life Is ‘Verily’ the Future of Women’s Magazines?
If you’re a woman who loves reading about fashion, culture and relationships — a woman who finds that Cosmopolitan and Glamour don’t speak to you — you should know about Verily magazine. It’s not your typical women’s magazine, and it’s motto proves that fact: “Less of who you should be, more of who you are.”…
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Life Raising a True Beauty
Would you rather be beautiful and stupid or ugly and brilliant? Think about it for a moment. As a high-achieving high school student, I remember considering it a no-brainer: It was better to be beautiful and stupid. Today, studies have shown that people react differently to others based on looks, with attractive people benefiting in…
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Life Cupid in a Kippah
On Valentine’s Day, one is absolutely the loneliest number. It helps if you can make plans with some single friends, but most people would prefer to be out with their perfect person. Valentine’s Day isn’t our holiday, religiously speaking — Jews have Tu B’Av — but it is an American holiday, and Valentine’s Day nicely…
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Life The Jews in ‘Suits’
Shortly after graduating from college in 2000, I found myself living and interning in Austin, Texas. Someone apparently mentioned to the friendly policeman who worked by my office that I was a Member of the Tribe. He was thrilled; he’d never met a New York Jew — or any Jew — before. He lived 100…
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Life Who Needs Baby Albums Anymore?
Why do we still buy baby albums? Last year, 4.2 million American babies were born, and category leader C.R. Gibson — which sold the first baby books in 1898 and now has over 20% of the pre-fab baby book market — sold roughly 800,000 traditional, hard-copy baby books to their families. I don’t judge. As…
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Life Judging Ourselves As Parents
The Jewish New Year is a time for judgment and reflection, not celebration. We gather to take stock and consider all of the ways we have fallen short, sinned and transgressed. We beat our chests, and each pounding represents a sin that either we — or some other member of the community — committed over…
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Life Jewish in Geneva
Hebrew may not be a universal language, but well-traveled Israelis make it a handy travel tool. I learned that as a rising college senior, when a gal pal and I backpacked around Europe, bumping into Israelis everywhere. My French was as non-existent then as it is now, but my Hebrew was quite good, and so…
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