When sending the grandchildren holiday gifts, should we use Christmas or Hanukkah wrapping paper? This real-life dilemma actually came up at one of the interfaith couple workshops conducted for the past 15 years at the Washington District of Columbia Jewish Community Center. With 450 couples that have already attended her workshops, and her first DVD…
Move over Jewish day schools. There’s a new intermarriage panacea in town, and its name is Birthright Israel. A just-released study from a research team at Brandeis University led by Leonard Saxe found that 72% of married, non-Orthodox Birthright Israel participants have wedded fellow Jews, compared to just 46% of their peers who did not…
When I moved to Berlin last year, I settled into a Bohemian-chic neighborhood in what was formerly East Berlin. Despite Germany’s declining birth rate — the once decaying buildings here, where coal ovens and shared bathrooms have been replaced with stainless steel kitchens and cupboards filled with organic muesli — are packed with babies. It’s…
Women make up about three-quarters of the Jewish communal work force, but few Jewish organizations have formal policies that guarantee access to paid maternity leave and flexible work arrangements — and fewer still offer paid paternity leave. Even at organizations with paid parental leave policies, the amount of paid time off is often minimal, leaving…
‘Carol Leifer Gets Weirder: Now Jewish, Lesbian, and Vegan,” an online gossip headline blared after the comedian filmed a Web ad for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. While most of that line rings true — Leifer is Semitic, same-sex loving and vegan — “weird” is the last word that comes to mind for…
The combination of meat and cheese always sounded delicious to me. It still does. If kashrut were not a guiding principle in my life, it would make good gastronomical sense to put a nice piece of cheese on that burger I just put on the grill. But I have been kosher about as long as…
I was 5 years old when I realized that I was a freak show. In Macon, Ga., good ole boys go huntin’, muddin’ and beer guzzlin’. Peroxide blondes drive pick-up trucks with gun racks. Prayer kicks off sporting events. A Jewish girl is like a werewolf-midget contortionist. My mother always dreamed I’d be married in…
When my wedding photo was published in the Forward in 2002, it accompanied an article about creative Jewish rituals found online, including a blessing for children at the time of their parent’s remarriage. I remember thinking, as I looked at the photo, what’s so unusual about this? Oh, right. Most people don’t have their five…
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