Woke up in excruciating pain. Usually, I can go the first 5 minutes of the day before it hits me. But sorry, not today. Of course, I had all these plans that got pushed back. I ended up in bed most of the day instead. And when I finally got out of it, the pain… Continue reading Pain, pain go away
Sat down with Lacey Schwartz, New York Director of Be’chol Lashon, to discuss the challenges and rewards of being a Dominican American convert to Orthodox Judaism. If you haven’t already, sign up for the Be’chol Lashon newsletter and keep up with the latest in Jews of color/Jewish diversity news.
Whether or not you have, I bet you’ll more than enjoy hearing Reform-then Conservative-then Orthodox Jewish convert and Italian-Irish American comedian Yisrael Campbell telling you about the THREE circumcisions (“a fetish!,” he says) and three conversions that made him the Jew he is today. Below is the trailer for the film “Circumcise Me.” Campbell is… Continue reading Have you been circumcised? A Happy New Year Deal!
Thank you, NY Times for issuing Corrections on the article I was featured in on Saturday! An article on Saturday about converts to Judaism and their struggles over Christmas misstated an account of interactions between Aliza Hausman and her relatives. Ms. Hausman, who converted several years ago, said her Dominican grandmother used to ask her… Continue reading Corrections on NY Times article
Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times Wow, I’m in the NY Times in an after-Christmas piece called: “Why Is This Christmas Different From All Others?”! The piece focuses on converts to Judaism and “the Christmas dilemma” and how they deal (or don’t) with their non-Jewish relatives at that particular time of year. I was… Continue reading Comments on the NY Times article: "Why Is This Christmas Different From All Others?"
My cold/flu has finally abated! I can’t believe how many Kleenex tissue boxes I went through in the past three weeks. Hopefully, my fibromyalgia, which was exacerbated by the cold/flu, will settle back into more manageable pain levels. In the meantime, as usual, all the latest news on conversion has been piling in my inbox.… Continue reading Two phrases that should not be in the same sentence: "Conversion Rabbi" and "Sex Tape Scandal"
Open call for filmmakers! Profiling: Exploring the Faces of Diversity within the Jewish CommunityThe Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival and the Tychman Shapiro Gallery at the Sabes Jewish Community Center Seek Short Films for Film Festival Competition and Group ExhibitionFilmmakers from all backgrounds are invited to submit short films (10 minutes and under) reflecting elements of… Continue reading Profiling: Exploring the Faces of Diversity within the Jewish Community
Though it’s not about this week’s parsha (Torah portion), I came across this piece and I couldn’t resist using it on the blog. In Sefer Tehilim (146:9) David HaMelech teaches us that God “shomer (protects) Gerim (converts)”. The Hebrew verb ‘shomer’ means ‘to watch, guard, protect’ and it also means ‘to save’ – in the… Continue reading Urgings of the Heart: Why G-d Protects Converts
What DOES a Jew do on Christmas Eve? There have been years after my conversion when I have been so ensconced in the Jewish world that I didn’t even remember that December 24 and December 25 had any significance to anyone, much less to myself at one time and my family. But this year, my… Continue reading What’s a Jew do on Christmas Eve?
The first year I was in the conversion process, I was really upset that this time of year most people, most cashiers and store clerks, said “Merry Christmas” to everyone instead of the more inclusive “Happy Holidays!” Probably, I responded to every “Merry Christmas” with a face that could only be called my Bah-humbug face.… Continue reading What do you say when…?
Memoirs of a Jewminicana 