Simi Lichtman is a contributor to the Forward.
Simi Lichtman
By Simi Lichtman
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Life Judging a Hasidic Marriage Against My Own
I was on the plane home from our summer vacation when I saw something disturbing. After landing, the lady across the aisle from me began throwing up into a plastic bag. Fine, so she gets sick from turbulence. The disturbing part was how her husband responded: he didn’t. While she sat hunched over her bag,…
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Life Heels Versus Flats as a Married Woman
As a woman, being married is usually not enough to keep a man from looking at you; there’s no obvious sign that I carry around with me that signals my status as a taken woman. I wear a ring, of course, but that’s not noticeable, especially not from afar. I wear a hair covering —…
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Life Choosing My Husband Over Israel
For many years — for most of my life, in fact — I wanted to live in Israel. My elementary school was so successful in teaching its students to be Zionists that it eventually had to close down; too many of the students and families moved to Israel. I myself was a convert to Zionism,…
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Life Huma Stayed for Love
Huma Abedin is, depending on which papers you read, suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, hanging in with her husband, Anthony Weiner, because of her future political aspirations, a product of a Saudi Arabian childhood, or under the delusions caused by Nice Jewish Boy Derangement Syndrome. These are just a few of the reasons suggested for why…
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Life A Man’s Feminism
Usually, when gender equality is discussed, it’s often in the context of how women can obtain equal rights and opportunities in society and in the workforce as men. I’m married to a man who wants that, sure, but his objections to gender inequality go further: Jeremy wants a world where men get the same opportunities…
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Life Why I Married Young
Jeremy and I both read the recent New York Times article on women in college — well, at Penn — and their approach to sex and relationships. When we discussed it, we realized we both found one of the quotes from a woman in the piece troubling: “I’ve always heard this phrase, ‘Oh, marriage is…
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Life Tisha B’Av, Take One
If you’ve been raised by Orthodox parents, attended only Orthodox schools and camps, and spent two years in Israel studying Jewish topics, it can be a bit embarrassing to realize that after 24 years, you have to check Chabad.org to remember all the rules of Tisha B’Av. But until now, I didn’t need to remember…
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Life Personal Lubricants Now Kosher Certified
When the Oreo became kosher 15 years ago, the kosher-keeping world may have thought the milestone would be the climax of kosherization. As of yesterday, they would be wrong. Trigg Labs, the vanilla-sounding brand behind Wet sexual wellness products, has apparently spent the last two years undergoing a koshering process, according to the Herald Online,…
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