When my son Jeremy was 4, I took him to the Zimmer Children’s Museum, near my home in Los Angeles. The exhibit includes a replica of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, with paper for children to write their prayers and insert them between the stones of the wall. I explained this idea to Jeremy, and…
This past weekend, my family and I went out to eat at a restaurant. We happened to sit near a television showing a wrestling match. The two wrestlers were locked in a hold. One of the wrestlers wore blue shorts; the other wore red shorts. “Go blue!” My 5-year-old son Jeremy cheered. “Why are you…
On a recent morning, we arrived a few minutes early to my 2-year-old daughter’s pre-school, and I explained to her that she couldn’t go into the classroom just yet. “Why, Mommy?” she asked. “Your teachers are cleaning up and getting the class ready for you,” I replied. “Why?” “Because they want the class to be…
For the first 20 years of her life, Chani Getter was no different from the other girls in the Nikolsburg Hasidic sect in Monsey, N.Y. As the second of five children, she earned good grades at school and had close friends. At age 17, she was introduced to her future husband, also 17, and after…
The combination of meat and cheese always sounded delicious to me. It still does. If kashrut were not a guiding principle in my life, it would make good gastronomical sense to put a nice piece of cheese on that burger I just put on the grill. But I have been kosher about as long as…
Three months into planning our wedding, my fiancé and I found ourselves playing the unlikely role of matchmaker. As a farmers’ market shopping, eco-minded Jew, I wanted the food at our reception to be fresh, local and organic. Meanwhile, my fiancé’s Orthodox family required anything we served to have the kosher stamp of approval. After…
The feminist project of rethinking the Seder has begun — and my home is its next front. My eldest daughter, who recently became bat mitzvah, received as a gift a Miriam’s Cup. I’m not wild about such feminist flourishes, but as a father of three daughters, I dare not oppose them even if I find…
New Jewish Feminism: Probing the Past, Forging the Future Edited by Rabbi Elyse Goldstein Jewish Lights Publishing, 480 pages, $24.99. Our family’s Passover Seders are always large and boisterous, but I wasn’t prepared for the mini-rebellion that occurred a few years ago. Like all good feminists of a certain age, I relished the chance to…
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