Gabrielle Birkner
By Gabrielle Birkner
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Life Sex and the Bat Mitzvah Set?
I was married last week, and for our recent rehearsal dinner, my now husband and I put together a slideshow of photographs showing each of us at various stages of childhood and young adulthood. There were the obligatory bar and bat mitzvah shots. Combing through the photos of my 1992 bat mitzvah party, I got…
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Life A Heckscher for Fertility Clinics?
For many couples, keeping the commandment to “be fruitful and multiply” doesn’t come easy. The good news is that, today, those who have trouble becoming pregnant have options that Abraham and Sarah (the Bible’s most famous reproductively challenged couple) never did; the bad news is that halacha or Jewish law — with its set of…
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Life How a Jewish Woman Clinched an Arab Literary Prize
This story about a Jewish woman who, writing under a pen name, clinched an Arab literary prize, just came across JTA: Tuvit Shlomi, 28, who works at the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel and attends an Orthodox synagogue in The Hague, won the prestigious El Hizjra Prize, a poetry award designed to promote…
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Life The Jewish Republican Rep. You’ve Never Heard Of
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, left, and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, right, yesterday unveiled a portrait of Florence Kahn (1866–1948), who in 1925 became the first Jewish woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. The Utah-born, California-reared Kahn, a Republican, was also among the first women to graduate from the University of California, Berkeley. Her education…
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Life Did Michelle Obama Snub Sara Netanyahu?
Today’s papers are full of photos of First Lady Michelle Obama in New York, rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful at the reopening yesterday of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American wing and at last night’s gala for the American Ballet Theatre. But Mrs. O’s New York trip left Sara Netanyahu — in Washington…
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Life Black Female Rabbi To Ascend to North Carolina Pulpit
Alysa Stanton, a black female who will be ordained next month at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, has been hired to lead Congregation Bayt Shalom in Greenville, N.C. According to its Web site, the congregation is affiliated with both the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and the Union for Reform Judaism. Stanton,…
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Opinion Media Roundup: TV Stars at the Mikveh, Against Curly Hair
• Whoa! Guess who’s a regular mikveh-goer? “Blossom” star and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik. Makes sense: Her name means “water” in Hebrew. Read Jewcy’s recent Q&A with her here. • Speaking of going to the mikveh, the 5 Towns Jewish Times has a feature on MikvahCalendar.com, a new Web site that helps women calculate when they’re…
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News Painful Rituals: Program Treats Eating Disorders in Observant Women
Just before sundown on a Friday evening, Rachel Nathanson turned on a lamp in her living room and recited the prayer traditionally said upon kindling Sabbath candles. Then she said the blessing over the wine, allowing herself a single sip of grape juice. She purposely skipped the blessing over the challah — “I don’t trust…
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