There is no doubt that Jewish life is a hundred, a thousand times easier in Israel. That holds true, in a slightly different way, in New York, where I hail from. There is an insane array of options in both places—they’re veritable buffets of Jewish identities, experiences, organizations and resources.
As the unofficial members of the Lesbian Chabad of Mid-Maine (no copyright infringement intended!), R. and I have taken up the duty of demonstrating what a Jewish home looks like—to locals, to students, to anyone who wants to come see. And I think that’s what lights these students up from the inside—it’s that idea of home.
It was that moment—planning the next hospital visit as I cleaned the bathroom, waiting for the oven to pre-heat, that I understood that maybe there’s some feminist implication to my complicity in this whole Chabad joke. For that manic weekend, I would have dared anyone to say I didn’t have equal value, didn’t play an equal role. I am woman, and I can goddamn well do anything that needs doing.
Let me start by saying this: the whole Lesbian Chabad thing began as a joke.
I’m a third-generation born New Yorker. Aggression in random interpersonal relations has never been my issue. I have been known to slap the hood of an anxious cab that barely skidded to a stop, to icily and brutally reject late-night propositions on subway platforms, to push as good as I got pushed. And then, I… Read more »
Allow me to state the obvious: the weeks leading up to Pesach are a time for thinking about food. That’s not only my very Jewish opinion—it’s my assertion as a designated foodie. This might sound ridiculously obvious, but the case deserves to be made anew: thinking about food is profoundly Jewish. Worrying about the feeding… Read more »
Sometimes, Israeli politics and U.S. politics can seem very far apart, very separate, very disconnected. And then there are months like this one. As the question of settlement expansion in the West Bank gets hotter and hotter, the question of what President Obama will, can and should do is burnin’ up as well. Furthermore, it… Read more »
It is a well-publicized time for your country to be in the news, if it begins with “i” and is located in the Middle East. (My apologies to India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iceland and Ireland. There is much of note going on in your interesting sovereign states as well, but I’m pressed for time.) I think… Read more »
In my (admittedly somewhat limited) experience, sometimes, once the bloom begins to fade from a new relationship, it can be easy to feel…well, maybe a little disappointed. You and your co-relationship person might disagree on something, or they disappoint you somehow, and you just feel the magic seeping away. When you’re lucky, you and your… Read more »
There were obviously big things afoot this past week, what with President Obama announcing his first Supreme Court nominee. If you are of a slightly wonkish persuasion, then perhaps you meditated on what it might mean for Secretary of State Clinton to have spoken very firmly to the Israeli leadership about curtailing the growth of… Read more »
