“Rabbi,” asks a man in that evergreen Jewish fairytale film “Fiddler on the Roof”: “Is there a proper blessing for the tzar?” It’s late October, and Jews leery of Halloween and its pagan origins may be wondering if there is a ritual saying for a witch. There is a curse, actually, written up neatly in…
Cherokee sweetheart. Trayvon Martin. Sexy nun. Adult rabbi. Every Halloween season features a signature stew of timely and extremely offensive costumes — such as the 2013 Trayvon Martin costume, the 2015 Caitlyn Jenner look-alikes and last year’s Zika-carrying mosquitoes. Just last week, the internet exploded in a rage about the sale of Anne Frank outfits….
Growing up in a secular family, I spent many Halloweens of my youth dressed as a Jack-O-Lantern. But that doesn’t mean I liked the holiday. I actually hated how showy people got with single-use costumes, the obsession with spooky things, and the overall lack of meaning in the celebrations. And then, of course, there were…
They may have been a hit when the kiddies were still in strollers — when they picked them out of those little red boxes with sticky fingers. If raisins are received while trick-or-treating, however, they will most likely be used as tiny projectiles — ones that are more likely to be thrown at you than…
Confession time: Until a few days ago, I had never made challah. I realize this isn’t entirely anomalous among the general Jewish population (though challah-making certainly does seem to be a growing trend). But as the food editor of the Forward, this just felt like something I should know how to do. And so, upon…
When my children were young, they attended preschool at our local Jewish Community Center. While there, with the exception of Nowruz (Persian New Year), they had no in-school experience with any holiday that was not a Jewish or an American one. No Christmas or Easter. No St. Valentine’s Day or St. Patrick’s Day. And no…
The thing about growing up in an Orthodox Jewish community is that Halloween simply doesn’t exist. It is not acknowledged, it is not celebrated and it is not noticed. But, just as I had dreamed at a young age of one day having a Christmas tree, I also dreamed of celerating Halloween. Purim is uneventful….
After the weeks of Jewish holidays, the last thing I wanted was another celebration. “Why can’t we trick-or-treat?” my kids wanted to know a few days before Halloween. “It’s not a Jewish holiday,” I answered automatically, the same words that I’d always spoken and that my mother had once spoken to me. Until this year,…
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