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.
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
Camp Be’chol Lashon near San Francisco brings Jewish summer camp to an emerging population of Jews of color. Diane Tobin, the camp’s director, read clues to a scavenger hunt with camper William Kahn, 11. Jim Wilson/The New York Times A long time ago, I stopped reading the comments section of my articles and then eventually,… Continue reading Why I Never Read the Comments Section
I get this question all the time from people in the conversion process (the answer is a little bit different) and people have already converted. When I was in the conversion process, I couldn’t go five minutes without telling people, quite excitedly, that I was converting. Or was it that I couldn’t go five minutes… Continue reading Question: Is a Jewish Convert obligated to reveal their status?
”Estas son las mañanitas” is the song the elders in my family sing to us youngins on our birthday. Hear it: Learn about the song and read the translation: http://gomexico.about.com/od/historyculture/qt/mananitas.htm Not quite sure why this Mexican birthday song is a tradition in our American-Dominican-Turkish-Jewish-Puerto Rican-Venezuelan-and-who-knows-what-else family but it is! Interestingly, the song is said to… Continue reading Happy Birthday to Me!!!!
7/12/2011 Shalom uvrakha to all members and supporters of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. During the past several weeks, I have had many meetings during our stay here in Jerusalem. I’ve met with current and future authors of articles for our journal, Conversations, and our website jewishideas.org. I gave a lecture at the… Continue reading Conversion goes back to 2006
Watch the video and can I just say how much I love how committed G-dcast is to always including Jews of color in their videos!!! Parshat Shelach Lecha from G-dcast.com This week’s storyteller is writer, scholar and activist Jay Michaelson For my husband’s thoughts on this week’s parsha, please read: “The Secret of Life: Parashat Shelach-Lecha”… Continue reading Parshat Shelach Lecha: The Spies Like Us
BDJ’s (Bnai-David Judea Congregation’s) Design-It-Yourself Summer Beit Midrash Is there something you would like to study this summer, but you’re not sure where or how? Would you love to study Tanach, Midrash or Talmud, but can’t seem to find anyone to help you? Then come and join BDJ’s Summer Beit Midrash! Beginning June 20th, at which… Continue reading Where are you learning this summer? (Los Angeles)
My pain is acting up from too much typing so I have to make this briefer than I’d like but longer than I should. 🙂 Yesterday, as everyday, I had to push myself to go to the gym and run errands but I was terribly exhausted after having overdone it the day before at the… Continue reading How My Writing Changed Someone Else’s Life
When I started to “become religious” (as in Jewish), I stopped writing God and started substituting that with G-d instead. And no, not because of any mispeling vyrus I caught from reading too many Thursday Next novels in quick succession. Many of my friends as you can imagine were perplexed, especially since I was an English… Continue reading No, really, I can spell!
Memoirs of a Jewminicana 