Gabrielle Birkner
By Gabrielle Birkner
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Life In the Age of Swine Flu, Please Refrain From Kissing the Torah
Here’s a High Holy Day dilemma for the H1N1 era: You think you might have the swine flu, but you don’t want to miss your Rosh Hashanah aliyah. What to do? Forget about kissing the Torah or the ark covers, according to Israel’s health ministry. In an attempt to stem the spread of the sometimes…
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News Few Jewish Workplaces Have Family-Friendly Policies
Women make up about three-quarters of the Jewish communal work force, but few Jewish organizations have formal policies that guarantee access to paid maternity leave and flexible work arrangements — and fewer still offer paid paternity leave. Even at organizations with paid parental leave policies, the amount of paid time off is often minimal, leaving…
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News Being Game
Lately, my weekends invariably include a round or two of Tetris: Kitchen Edition. The object of this game is to fit all the new pots, pans, casserole dishes and kitchen appliances — big ones, the kind that come with scary-looking attachments and instructional DVDs — into my cupboard- and countertop-deprived Manhattan kitchen. While I’ve spent…
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Life Chelsea Clinton’s Nice Jewish Boy
Rumors are rampant that Chelsea Clinton and her longtime beau, Marc Mezvinsky, who is Jewish, are getting ready to tie the knot on Chappaquiddick island, off Martha’s Vineyard. The New York Post’s Page Six today ran a photo of a Chappaquiddick property where “a stage was being built and a large tent, capable of seating…
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Life The High Line’s and Rabbi Shmuley’s Unwelcome Neighbors
Stroller mommies taking in New York’s new High Line park aren’t the only ones vexed by the prospect of seeing more than they bargained for. Media-loving Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is threatening to sue the Libyan government, which owns the Englewood, N.J. property that abuts his home, for cutting down trees that kept his neighbors out…
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Israel News Coining Haute Judaica
At the intersection of Judaica and high fashion is a new jewelry line that features pendants made out of Israeli coins. The collection is called Kessef, which is the Hebrew word for money and a play on the last name of its 27-year-old founder and designer, Eve Lynn Kessner. Two years ago Kessner enrolled in…
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Life A Lifeline for Jewish Women With Ovarian Cancer
The genetic mutations that greatly increase a woman’s chance of getting breast cancer — mutations that are common among Ashkenazi Jewish women — also put her at high risk for ovarian cancer. So it makes sense that Sharsheret, which, since 2001, has been offering free support services to young Jewish women living with (or at…
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Life ‘Homeless’ Benefactor ‘Lost in Translation’
Last week, Hebrew University announced a posthumous $100,000 donation from a homeless concentration camp survivor, but did not release the benefactor’s name. Well, the donor has been identified as Ida Fischer. And as it turns out, Fischer wasn’t homeless; she was a frugal Midtown Manhattan resident who fled Hitler’s Europe with her family, but was…
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