Abigail Pogrebin has become a rare voice among American Jews, as a journalist and an explorer who shares with refreshing wit and candor her path to finding a meaningful Jewish life.
A former producer for 60 Minutes and Charlie Rose, author of “Stars of David: Prominent Jews Talk About Being Jewish,” “One and the Same,” and “Showstopper,” she has her own interview series at The JCC in Manhattan and was a co-author of Newsweek’s annual Top Rabbis list.
Follow her on Twitter @apogrebin
Creator of heaven and earth. / May it be your will to free the captive wives of Israel / When love and sanctity have fled the home, / But their husbands bind them in the tatters of ketubot. / Remove the bitter burden from these agunot and / Soften the hearts of their misguided captors….
It must be embroidered on a sampler somewhere: “Before Jews party, they should suffer a little.” Thus, we fast the day before Purim. Purim is, hands down, the biggest party of the Jewish year. Forget fall’s Simchat Torah, with its sips of single malt, THIS is the Big Megillah and we’re supposed to get trashed….
I never thought I’d pine for Manischewitz. But the odd, clashing wine combinations of the Tu B’Shvat seder made me yearn for the familiar, sugary Passover libation. The Kabbalists who created the Tu B’Shvat seder in the 16th century chose to include four cups to mirror Passover. But their wine instructions took an odd turn….
Mike Wallace, the legendary 60 Minutes correspondent, kept to a Tu B’Shvat diet. When I was one of his producers years ago, he prided himself on his intake of nuts and raisins, insisting they were the secret to his longevity and jet black hair. Mike, rest his soul, would never have called his regimen the…
I’m failing at Shabbat, the most important holiday of them all. It’s not that I’m skipping it; for the past eight years, I’ve gone to services most Friday nights and many Saturday mornings. I buy a challah every week. Light candles. Recite Kiddush. I do feel some Shabbat separation — the literal translation of the…
I don’t recommend fasting on New Year’s Day. Starvation is not the best cure for a hangover. But the Jewish calendar isn’t known for convenience, and this year, the Fast of the Tenth of Tevet — Tzom Asara B’Tevet — happened to land on January 1st. What a joyful way to ring in 2015: revisiting…
“G-d is great – He has to forgive, If my heart is all earth. My life is light – like a rain of leaves. Not a trace remains.”
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