Ivanka Trump’s conversion/engagement to Jared Kushner may be interesting to most readers because of its wealthy-elite-hooking-up gossip factor, but their story is also quite relevant to the controversies that have been surrounding Orthodox conversion in recent years. My unsolicited advice to the happy couple, who shall heretofore be known collectively as Jivanka: Don’t try to…
Dear Bintel Brief, My husband and I had a Jewish home. We were active members of our synagogue and celebrated all the Jewish holidays. My husband recently declared himself an atheist and gave up on all things religious. I still want to light candles and celebrate Shabbat, have seders, etc., but he refuses to participate….
Just in time for New York’s gay pride events, the president of the Jewish Labor Committee, Stuart Appelbaum, announced publicly that he is gay. Appelbaum is thought to be the first president of a major international union to come out. Appelbaum is the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represents 100,000…
As a straight, married woman, I often refer to my husband as my partner. Sari, in your recent post on The Sisterhood, you wrote that you’re discomfited by heterosexuals’ use of the term “partner” to refer to their significant other. I’ve used the term consciously not because I wanted to steal anything semantic from gay…
Lately, something confusing has started to happen. I’ll find myself at a wedding or an academic conference or a dinner party and I’ll meet a heterosexual who invariably makes reference to his or her “partner,” a term once employed mainly by gays and lesbians to refer to same-sex significant others. Now, in what seems to…
