My friend Hadassah, who is an awesome daily blogger, just wrote a post defending converts and their right to privacy. Please visit the post, it’s called “Conversion is Private” and please weigh in with your personal thoughts. Especially if you agree or disagree! In my responses, I mentioned Jews of color, including converts of color,… Continue reading CONVERSION IS PRIVATE!!!!
This Rosh Hashanah, I was accused of un-Rebbetzin-like behavior by a stranger who didn’t even know me, who didn’t even talk to me, at a local minyan I attended. I don’t know this person. I don’t know this person’s name or anything about him or her other than the casually uttered harsh words this person… Continue reading To Those Who Judge Unfavorably…I am NOT a Piñata!
Hope you had a great Rosh Hashana and are gearing up for Yom Kippur this upcoming Shabbos. Ug, I hate when Yom Kippur falls on Shabbos but after all the food I had over Rosh Hashana, which this year fell so close to Shabbos it created a 3-day yom tov, I think I’ll be fine!… Continue reading My Jewish Community Heroes
Rosh Hashana Plush Set from Brochin’s The Jewish new year is upon us again! Boy, in some ways that went by really fast and in other ways…painfully slow. I can’t believe Rosh Hashanah is back though already and I’m hoping, as always, that next year will be better than the last. Rosh Hashanah starts tonight… Continue reading Get in the Rosh Hashanah Spirit!
Beverly Hills High School, one of the best public high schools in LA, has a large Jewish student population. If you talk to laypeople in the Orthodox community about the conversion crisis, you’ll note very quickly that most of them are living under a rock and don’t even know what you’re talking about even in… Continue reading The Growing Implications of the Current Conversion Crisis that nobody seems to know about
And now (because I’m so Jewish) I will turn into a matzoh ball! Okay, HOW did I miss this video of MaNishtana that pulls in interviews and pieces from his most infamous and awesome videos? The funny thing about moving to New York Los Angeles (Sorry, folks, that was just a homesick typo, I’ve never MOVED… Continue reading And now I turn into a matzoh ball?
I must confess, it wasn’t until fairly recently that I heard the term M.O.T., as in member of the tribe. But then the person who asked if the guy I was telling him about was an MOT, probably had never heard of JOCs, as in Jews of color. I’ll never know. I didn’t ask when… Continue reading Are you a Member of the Tribe?
I remember when I used to stay with my girlfriends for Shabbos in Washington Heights. There was a point, right before candle lighting on Friday night, when all the girls would squeeze in together between the wall and the big claw-foot tub to put on their makeup in front of the medicine cabinet mirror. They… Continue reading Shabbos Makeup…Whoa.
Is this not the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? I’m slightly obsessed with it even though when someone gave me a gold “Aliza” pendant, I sort of freaked and had a flashback to my ghetto childhood. All the “cool” girls who used to rag on me wore their shiny little MEAN GIRL names around their… Continue reading Oooh, my precious!
I woke up this morning to find that Mexican Jewish food had been featured in The New Yorker blog! Was I still asleep? Was I dreaming? When American Jews think Judaism or even Jewish food, they think Ashkenazi or Eastern European food. They don’t think Hispanic Jewish food. People don’t think of Jews as a… Continue reading Mexican Jewish Food Hits The New Yorker
Memoirs of a Jewminicana 