Looks like religious chic is becoming a bona fide trend. Sure, H&M has their own Tallit, but now haute couture is getting its own Jewish flavor. At this week’s Moscow Fashion Week, Russian fashion house St. Bessarion — which, ironically, is named for a Christian saint — dressed models in clothes inspired by Orthodox Judaism….
Kirtan, a Sanskrit call-and-response form of worship from India, and Rabbi, are two words not often found in the same sentence. Rabbi Andrew Hahn, better known as the “Kirtan Rabbi,” is on track to change that. Hahn’s spiritual innovation was on display at the Jewish Heritage Museum in New York’s Battery Park last week, as…
I’m thinking more and more that the president should have nominated a Protestant to the court. Think about it: Liberals have been arguing for decades in favor of diversity as a fundamental value in schooling, hiring and choosing governing/decision-making bodies. How can a Democratic president take the step that renders the Supreme Court devoid of…
A frum friend recently suggested I take a look at Unpious.com, a website of “news, commentary, and writings by and for Hasidim on the fringe.” The word “fringe,” in this case, is not a reference to tzitzit, but to the type of Hasid who supposedly writes for Unpious—ambivalent and sex-obsessed. The essays on Unpious.com tend…
“Rachel” an ultra-Orthodox mother of 12 living in Jerusalem, got divorced this week. It’s cause for celebration for two reasons. First, this grants her much-needed freedom from her severely violent and erratic now-ex-husband, a man who viciously controlled, manipulated and abused her and her children during the marriage and separation. But the real jubilation is…
Still Jewish: A History of Women and Intermarriage in America By Keren R. McGinity New York University Press, 305 pages. Freelance writer Beth Levine intended to marry a Jewish man and raise “nominally Jewish children,” although she could not define what being a Jew meant. But, after marrying Bill Squire, a gentile, in 1991, she…
Massechet Sotah in the Babylonian Talmud is not the best place to look for perspectives that contemporary Jews hold on relationships. In fact, you’d imagine that such a tractate would be about as informative as the book of Leviticus is on contemporary attitudes of dinner etiquette. But there on the very first page of Sotah…
My American-Jewish childhood may have been typical: Friday night dinner was followed by 20/20 on TV, Saturday morning synagogue often preceded a trip to the mall. I went to a Conservative Jewish day school where controversial topics were often discussed openly, though not interfaith dating or marriage. The implied assumption was: We were expected to…
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