There are many crises happening around the world right now — coups and civil wars, Spitzers and Weiners and what-have-you. But the real serious crisis involves the old Jewish maids crying their eyes dry because no nice Jewish boys will marry them. The yeshivish Orthodox world has been embroiled in the so-called “shidduch crisis” for…
I have a few choice words for Susan A. Patton, the infamous “Princeton Mom,” but I fear my ugly language would cause her to clutch her pearls so tightly it might cut off the oxygen to her brain. Then again, maybe that’s what she needs to smarten up. Earlier this year, Patton sparked outrage and,…
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…
There’s an episode of “House” that Jeremy and I watched recently. In it, a doctor on House’s team is trying to thank him. When he avoids her, she says to him, “Do you know why people pray? Do you think they pray to him and praise him because they want him to know how great…
I was talking to a friend once, a woman who’s been married for a few years, and she said, “There will be times when you’ll think to yourself, ‘Why did I marry him? Did I make a terrible mistake?’ And that’s okay.” Out of relief, out of gratitude for her speaking so honestly, out of…
Baking challah does not seem like a particularly frightening task. Time-consuming and delicate, yes, but not scary. But for many years, I viewed challah as something more powerful than its ingredients. Challah, to me, posed a challenge about love and marriage. In my all-girls high school — a wonderful school, I might add, though at…
I found myself surprised by the critical response Caroline Rothstein and Debra Nussbaum Cohen got for explaining why they feel Jews should marry Jews. Rothstein wrote about why she only dates Jewish guys and Nussbaum Cohen about why she wants her children to marry Jews. I see no problem with the act of wanting a…
I’ve written about the changing nature of finding friends post-college, but I’ve not yet written about how friendships themselves change, particularly friendships with men. My friendships with men shifted before marriage, back when Jeremy and I were still dating. In fact, it was one of the indicators that our relationship was becoming more serious: I…
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