Years ago, when my brother married a Jewish woman, I began to look into my family’s own history with Judaism. As a gay man it was just another aspect of my identity I would investigate. This quest took me to my grandmother’s mother, Jenny Grossman. Jenny was the daughter of Jewish parents who emigrated from…
On a beautiful spring day some thirty years ago, I had a heart-to-heart talk with my brother, Duvid. We had come of age in the 1970s and were both active musicians. In those days, the music world meant the availability of drugs, primarily but not exclusively marijuana. Duvid had developed a taste not only for…
In January of this year, Ramah in the Rockies is opening BaMidbar Wilderness Therapy, the nation’s first Jewish wilderness therapy program, serving young adults struggling with trauma, mental health issues, substance abuse, and those struggling on their journey from adolence to independent adulthood. The Jewish tradition provides such powerful guidance, support, and strength. And it…
The opioid epidemic is hitting the tight-knit community of Bukharian Jews in Queens, DNAInfo reported. This year the Bukharians have seen nine overdoses reported — over twice what the community suffered last year, according to a rabbi within the community. Most of the 60,000 Bukharian Jews that live in Queens came from the former Soviet…
I have just read Bethany Mandel’s two most recent Opinion pieces in the Forward, and she deserves unending gratitude for blowing the whistle on Jewish denial of addiction in our midst. The first piece, “It’s Time To Admit That The Opioid Crisis Is Also A Jewish One,” charts recent news coverage of opioid and heroin…
Earlier this month, the 5 Towns Jewish Times published a shocking statistic: Since October 2016, over 100 young people from New York’s Orthodox community had died from drug overdoses. One 10-day span saw five deaths. “It is a scourge that is inflicting our community in a most shocking and unexpected way,” the author of the…
The public health crisis of rampant opioid abuse has reached the insular ultra-Orthodox community in Brooklyn. Malky Klein, a 20-year-old ultra-Orthodox woman from Borough Park, died of an overdose last month, the New York Post reported. Jewish volunteer ambulances were called to the Klein home on June 24th after Klein’s mother found her unconscious in…
Summer is not only a time of more “light” but also more “lite.” Along with the shedding of layers there is also less structure, less supervision and less accountability. Students in particular transition from intense study to absolute freedom, with hours and hours of nothing productive to do. But instead of enjoying the freedom, all…
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