This past Simchat Torah, a friend and I watched warily as one of the congregants, usually a composed professional type, staggered around the front lawn of the synagogue, drunk and mumbling to himself. Inside, the other men of the congregation were bidding on aliyahs and other honors for the upcoming year, their wallets loosened thanks…
It’s always a good idea to bring a little gift when you’re invited to a dinner party, and when you’re invited to a Seder — where presumably your host has been cooking and preparing for days if not weeks — a particularly thoughtful offering is in order. But what’s appropriate, and how should it be…
Purim’s on Saturday night this year, making the Jewish Halloween a particularly opportune time for excessive drinking. That’s why the Orthodox Union, a synagogue service organization known for its kosher certifying agency, has released an ad campaign urging caution around alcohol on Purim, nodding to the 1980s slogan of anti-drunk driving campaigners: “Friends don’t let…
Every time I hear the old saw that Jews aren’t drinkers, I scratch my head and wonder if my family, colleagues and friends are all somehow a minority-within-a-minority — or whether this little piece of conventional wisdom is all wet. Luckily, I work down the hall from an expert in such matters, Dan Friedman, the…
It’s the dawn of a new day, and I need a drink. Luckily, I’ve dug up a neat little collection of cocktail recipes — all created in what now seems like a different era — which offer fortification in various forms of rye, gin, vodka, Mahia, Drambuie, prosecco and Arak. Saturday, the marchers marched with…
An earlier version of this post appeared in the Leviathan Jewish Journal, December 2015. The Magen David, or the Jewish star, used to be known as something else: The “brewer’s star.” As early as the 14th century, the six-pointed star was stamped on the bottom of beer barrels by the European brewers’ guild. Its purpose…
Apparently, America’s favorite squeaky clean celebrity spent some time in rehab this year. According to E!News, the 25-year-old actor completed treatment roughly five months ago for what was initially thought to be alcohol abuse. But sources told TMZ that Efron, set to star as a frat boy in Seth Rogen’s upcoming film “Neighbors,” was actually…
● Drinking With Men: A Memoir By Rosie Schaap Riverhead Books, 272 pages, $26.95 As Rosie Schaap remembers it, in 1987, at the age of 16, she took the advice of her guidance counselor and dropped out of high school to follow the Grateful Dead. She sold beads and tie-dyed T-shirts to support herself, went…
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