The Talmud didn’t make Sasha Steinberg a drag queen. But it did help inspire Vym, the “drag culture” glossy he launched in July as Sasha Velour, his alter ego. “What struck me about the Talmud, and so much Jewish philosophy, is that it’s not always one narrative,” Steinberg told the Forward from the Brooklyn apartment…
On Monday, Dr. Ruth Westheimer appeared on the “Diane Rehm Show” and made what have already become widely circulated remarks suggesting that, once a couple is naked and in bed together, consent is considered already granted and irrevocable: “I am very worried about college campuses saying that a woman and a man… can be in…
After voting many Israelis will have a picnic or go to the beach — no matter whom they vote for / Getty Images (JTA) — “Whom to vote for and whom not to vote for?” Thus begins page 17 of the Talmud’s Tractate Voters. It continues: “One should not vote for Likud or Zionist Union…
A young father in the insular Skverer sect, Shulem Deen took the one job available to him: teacher. In an exclusive excerpt from his forthcoming memoir, “All Who Go Do Not Return,” which chronicles his painful journey from 18-year-old newlywed to being expelled from New Square as a heretic, he recounts how the need to…
(JTA) — Many students want to emulate their teachers, but at least one early rabbi took this to an extreme. The Talmud records that Rav Kahana was so eager to learn his master’s secrets that he even once observed his teacher having sex. Kahana lay under the bed of his teacher Rav, heard him talking…
Illustration by Anya Ulinich. From when I was a little girl until I went to college, every Valentine’s Day, I would find a small gift and a card from my parents (or really, my mom) waiting for me at my spot on the kitchen table. Even after I moved out, first to go to college…
An Orthodox Jewish man covered with snow walks in Jerusalem / Getty Images New York’s got nothing on ancient Jerusalem, and Governor Andrew Cuomo’s got nothing on Rabbi Hillel the Elder. While we were all rushing home to take shelter from the impending Blizzard Juno, with its promised “historic” downfall of 30 inches of snow,…
Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews: Ancient Jewish Folk Literature Reconsidered edited by Galit Hasan-Rokem and Ithamar Gruenwald Wayne State University Press, 224 pages, $44.99 The legacy of the Talmudist Louis Ginzberg exemplifies the benefits of lovability in Jewish studies. Those familiar with the life of Henrietta Szold (1860-1945), founder of Hadassah and Ihud, the…
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