
Simi Lichtman is a contributor to the Forward.
Simi Lichtman is a contributor to the Forward.
Ideally, the Jewish holidays are supposed to be about deep religious symbolism, usually something to do with surviving and being saved by God. But in reality, each holiday comes with its own baggage and modern-day choices. Pesach should be about freedom from slavery, but in truth it’s often about cleaning and cooking, unless your family…
The other day, I whined to Jeremy that we spend too much time watching television together and not enough time doing interactive activities. “Let’s get a puzzle!” I suggested, already picturing us sprawled out on the floor, putting together a 1,000-piece puzzle, nonexistent fireplace warming our nonexistent Golden Retriever by our sides. “I don’t like…
Before Jeremy and I got married, the rabbi who performed our ceremony asked us to make a list of three things that excited us about marriage and three things that scared us. We both said that we were scared of living together and perhaps coming to resent certain aspects of each other’s personalities that didn’t…
Baboo is my grandmother. She’s one of those tiny Polish women whom you can’t picture without wrinkles, who dotes on her grandchildren with all her heart and spare cash, and who occasionally makes inappropriate jokes and then giggles at her own audacity. In short, she’s great. So it’s easy to forgive her for her occasional…
Unlike many women in my position — that is, married — I never spent any time debating what last name would follow my own personal Mrs. Unlike Sisterhood blog editor Abigail Jones, I was never “paralyzed” by the last name conundrum and all the baggage that comes with it, because for me it wasn’t a…
When I was growing up in Baltimore, my family used to gather together every week to read a column in a local publication about weddings and relationships. We often found them very silly. My favorite one was the story of a woman who had composed a list of 95 things she wanted in a husband,…
I feel cheated. I was in the ninth grade when I first learned that when I was to get married, I would only be able to touch my husband for about half of each month. I had known about sex for about eight years at that point, and no one had cared to mention to…
I wasn’t happy for seven years of my life. It wasn’t so much that I was sad; it was more that I simply didn’t let myself be happy. Sure, I had fun and had friends and went on trips, but the pervasive feeling in my life was one of guilt; If I was watching a…
מײַן פֿעטער יונה האָט נישט געהיט שבת און כּשרות אָבער בײַם אָפּריכטן דעם סדר האָט ער געקלונגען ווי אַ פֿרומער ייִד
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