I am a mother. I am other things too, of course: a woman, a wife to M, a sister, a daughter, a friend, an American, a Jew, an editor, a reader, a consumer—but ever since my son N was born six years ago, what I am, primarily, is a mother. In the course of an… Read more »
Some writers would say I’ve officially made it. No, I’m not making a million dollars a year as a freelance writer yet (and word on the street is, I probably never will). But yesterday, while reading the most recent issue of PresentTense magazine, I saw that I got slammed in a Letter to the Editor.… Read more »
There is much—much, much—to think about, as we sit during one Super day, anticipating another. (Non-US blog readers: It’s Super Bowl Sunday, meaning there’s a lot of yelling in the apartment above me about American football, and Super Tuesday, when over half the nation’s primaries are held, is fast approaching.) I, myself, am extremely gratified… Read more »
On Friday morning, I was cooking for Shabbat and cleaning my Jerusalem apartment while listening to a radio station that shall remained unnamed. While I cut up cauliflower, I listened over the airwaves as someone leyned selections from the Torah portion and haftarah. (This is generally good review for my own leyning the next day… Read more »
A new collection of Hannah Arendt’s writings on Jewish subjects is about to be published, cleverly titled “The Jewish Writings.” Arendt wasn’t known primarily as a Jewish writer (even though Eichmann in Jerusalem may be her best known work), but she wrote a lot about Jewish themes and issues, maybe even more than she wrote… Read more »
This week saw the breaking story—sorry—of Gazans blasting their way into Egypt to buy such advanced commodities as…milk. The world at large seems to have collectively looked at this with a resounding, “meh.” I don’t like to comment too much on Israeli/Middle Eastern politics because a) I have a fear of hyper-flammable materials and b)… Read more »
There’s been lots of hype surrounding the announcement of the Shalom Hartman Institute’s new ordination program that would ordain Orthodox women as rabbis. But the Orthodox she-rabbi is really just a byproduct of the program, not the point of it. The non-denominational program is intended to train a new crop of Jewish educators, to teach… Read more »
There are different motivations behind this, of course. Both the ravenous press and Winehouse herself have joyfully portrayed her Jewish identity as a bizarre contrast with her bad girl image. The Jewish community, ever-eager to claim a celeb for the team, has managed to boast and sneer about her at the same time. Winehouse is the proud – and in many ways, welcome — antithesis of the “nice Jewish girl,” but since she does tend to identify with two out of the three elements of that little saying, both she and the media like to keep her options open.
I’ve been doing a lot of cooking lately. In comparison to the stereotypical “I use my oven as an extra shoe closet” New Yorker, I’ve probably always cooked a lot for this city. But since I started freelance writing two days a week last summer, and especially since the New Year when I renewed my… Read more »
