I stumbled across a brief story (actually feels really unfinished) on Ynet about a Muslim man who hopes to convert to Judaism in Israel. “Muslim seeking to convert: I’m Jewish in Spirit” highlights some of the challenges converts face as well as some of the rewards. The story has inspired 61 comments already.
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-2980522193469128149&hl=en&fs=trueHere I am practicing for a promo of an upcoming speaking engagement. A thoughtful friend forwarded an article to me called “Unmasking ‘Racial Micro Aggressions’” featured in the Monitor on Psychology. It was a good read since I’m gearing up to speak again in the coming weeks on subtle racism in the Jewish community. Microaggressions… Continue reading Getting Aggressive about Microaggression
Life is often funny. While I’m trying to sell a story about how one of my conversion rabbis, Elie Weinstock, told me I couldn’t set foot in a church again and my acquiescence led to losing a friendship, my head conversion rabbi, Haskel Lookstein, headed to church himself. His reason? None other than Barack Obama,… Continue reading My Rabbi Goes to Church
So I just received my “Commemorative Inaugural Edition” of Newsweek. Listen, I have nothing against Barack Obama but the dude even made it to the cover of my Entertainment Weekly! Fo’ shame. Meanwhile, I decided I’d give the issue a try anyway. I slipped past the first couple of pages and finally turned the magazine… Continue reading Can you be a color and a ghost?
I just finished writing rewriting this article for a Jewish writing class and I can’t bear that I don’t know when, if ever, it will see the light of day. So, I’m hoping some of you speed readers will give it a second chance and let me know what you think. Redefining Community: Ari Hart… Continue reading I ♥ Ari Hart
In “How to convert a crisis: Say ‘dayenu’”, Shammai Engelmayer does a pretty good job of summing up the current conversion crisis. At LimmudNY, Seth Farber, head of ITIM, did him one better. I sat in on one of Farber’s LimmudNY session, “Conversion Chaos.” This is how the session was billed: “Since 2004, conversion to… Continue reading Conversion Chaos
Cute photo from the website. Orthodox Conversion to Judaism is the new, official website of the Rabbinical Council of America Geirus (Conversion) Policies and Standards (GPS) Network. It’s clean, sleek and to the point. Hopefully, I’m not the last one to find out about it. I haven’t had a chance to view the site in… Continue reading It’s official!
Richard Brodsky, 56, ran a marathon a year after finding out he had brain cancer. He still runs with his wife, Jodi, right. (Christian Hansen/New York Times) There’s a new face to chronic illness and I’ve talked about it before on my blog. It was fibromyalgia, after all, that forced me to start exercising and… Continue reading A Healthy Shape
It’s not every day that you open the NY Times and find news about Dominicans so, of course, when I saw a link to “For Privacy’s Sake, Taking Risks to End Pregnancy”, I scrambled to open it. What I read when I opened the link and skimmed the article was really troubling. It was sad… Continue reading Dominican Women in Trouble
Memoirs of a Jewminicana 