● A Bride For One Night: Talmud Tales By Ruth Calderon, translated by Ilana Kurshan The Jewish Publication Society, 184 pages, $21.95 If Ruth Calderon did not exist, it would be necessary to dream of someone like her. For almost half a century, American expatriates and a small group of native Israelis have creatively and…
When I recently wrote my memoir of leaving ultra-Orthodoxy, I spent days ravaged by sobbing fits, debilitating chest pain, and migraines as I reencountered the trauma my 17-year-old self had experienced after I was pushed out of my yeshivish family for my rebellion. Shaken, I was fearful that when I went even further back to…
The 2013 Pew Research Center report underscored the fragility of the Jewish future in North America and has led to anguished discussions and debates about how to reduce the number of Jews relinquishing Judaism and Jewish identification in favor of other options. But as dramatic as the 2013 Pew report was, it may be that…
If you missed the holiday yesterday, take a moment to give it a second look. Yesterday was, after all, the Jewish festival of second chances. If you haven’t heard of it before, take a moment to catch up. The formal name of the day is Pesach Sheni, or “Second Passover.” It’s decreed in the Bible…
One day, when I was in my early 20s and teaching Torah to religious newbies in Jerusalem, I felt the bedrock of belief shudder beneath me. There’s a reason the sages wrote that the air of Jerusalem makes one wise. I could feel the vibe everywhere. I loved how a cosmetician might share a Torah…
Like it or not — and who among us actually likes it — come April 15, you will need to have filed your 2013 income tax return with the Internal Revenue Service. Perhaps one way to feel better about the painful and often inconvenient process is to recognize that it has roots in the biblical…
Have you ever scrolled through Buzzfeed thinking, ‘If only this could be a little more Jewish?” Someone in the wide netherworld of the Internet has heard your prayers and answered them. The result is BuzzTorah, a spoof of the news site that launched a thousand listicles created by Yeshiva University students. The website self-describes as…
● The Iranian Talmud: Reading the Bavli in Its Sasanian Context By Shai Secunda University of Pennsylvania Press, 272 pages, $55 Academic study of the Talmud once provoked anger. In “The Promise,” Chaim Potok’s 1969 sequel to “The Chosen,” Orthodox rabbinical student Reuven Malter wants to emend manuscripts and track the text’s historical development. His…
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