Another head covering eaten by my afro. Yes, dear, I owe you a blog post. There have been many recent developments I’d like to share. Unfortunately, none of them mean coming back to blogging full-time as I am still trying to recover from the downturn in my health since April 2010. But there’s plenty of goodish news in there somewhere. Read More »

More than once, a friend has confused me for someone who believes in Creationism. They see me as an Orthodox Jew and therefore, as a “fundamentalist” and so, of course, they figure I must believe in Creationism like some of the Christians they’ve heard of and fear. Read More »

My friend Hadassah, who is an awesome daily blogger, just wrote a post defending converts and their right to privacy. Please visit the post, it’s called “Conversion is Private” and please weigh in with your personal thoughts. Read More »

This Rosh Hashanah, I was accused of un-Rebbetzin-like behavior by a stranger who didn’t even know me, who didn’t even talk to me, at a local minyan I attended. I don’t know this person. Read More »

Hope you had a great Rosh Hashana and are gearing up for Yom Kippur this upcoming Shabbos. Ug, I hate when Yom Kippur falls on Shabbos but after all the food I had over Rosh Hashana, which this year fell so close to Shabbos it created a 3-day yom tov, I think I’ll be fine! In the meantime, it’s time again to vote for your Jewish Community Heroes. Read More »

Rosh Hashana Plush Set from Brochin’s The Jewish new year is upon us again! Boy, in some ways that went by really fast and in other ways…painfully slow. I can’t believe Rosh Hashanah is back though already and I’m hoping, as always, that next year will be better than the last. Read More »

Beverly Hills High School, one of the best public high schools in LA, has a large Jewish student population. If you talk to laypeople in the Orthodox community about the conversion crisis, you’ll note very quickly that most of them are living under a rock and don’t even know what you’re talking about even in prominent Jewish circles and events. Read More »

And now (because I’m so Jewish) I will turn into a matzoh ball! Okay, HOW did I miss this video of MaNishtana that pulls in interviews and pieces from his most infamous and awesome videos? The funny thing about moving to New York is having to search for other Jews of color all over again. Read More »

I must confess, it wasn’t until fairly recently that I heard the term M.O.T., as in member of the tribe. But then the person who asked if the guy I was telling him about was an MOT, probably had never heard of JOCs, as in Jews of color. I’ll never know. I didn’t ask when he looked at me like I was nuts for not knowing what an MOT was. Read More »

I remember when I used to stay with my girlfriends for Shabbos in Washington Heights. There was a point, right before candle lighting on Friday night, when all the girls would squeeze in together between the wall and the big claw-foot tub to put on their makeup in front of the medicine cabinet mirror. Read More »

Is this not the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? I’m slightly obsessed with it even though when someone gave me a gold “Aliza” pendant, I sort of freaked and had a flashback to my ghetto childhood. All the “cool” girls who used to rag on me wore their shiny little MEAN GIRL names around their neck. Read More »

I woke up this morning to find that Mexican Jewish food had been featured in The New Yorker blog! Was I still asleep? Was I dreaming? When American Jews think Judaism or even Jewish food, they think Ashkenazi or Eastern European food. They don’t think Hispanic Jewish food. Read More »

Right-click on the Chrome shortcut, then add “–disable-print-preview” to the end of the target file name. Remeber the two spaces before the –. It should then look like: “C: UsersUser NameAppDataLocalGoogleChromeApplicationchrome. Read More »

Camp Be’chol Lashon near San Francisco brings Jewish summer camp to an emerging population of Jews of color. Diane Tobin, the camp’s director, read clues to a scavenger hunt with camper William Kahn, 11. Read More »

I get this question all the time from people in the conversion process (the answer is a little bit different) and people have already converted. When I was in the conversion process, I couldn’t go five minutes without telling people, quite excitedly, that I was converting. Read More »

‎”Estas son las mañanitas” is the song the elders in my family sing to us youngins on our birthday. Hear it: Learn about the song and read the translation: http: //gomexico.about.com/od/historyculture/qt/mananitas. Read More »

7/12/2011 Shalom uvrakha to all members and supporters of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals. During the past several weeks, I have had many meetings during our stay here in Jerusalem. I’ve met with current and future authors of articles for our journal, Conversations, and our website jewishideas.org. Read More »

Watch the video and can I just say how much I love how committed G-dcast is to always including Jews of color in their videos!!! Parshat Shelach Lecha from G-dcast. Read More »

BDJ’s (Bnai-David Judea Congregation’s) Design-It-Yourself Summer Beit Midrash Is there something you would like to study this summer, but you’re not sure where or how? Would you love to study Tanach, Midrash or Talmud, but can’t seem to find anyone Read More »

My pain is acting up from too much typing so I have to make this briefer than I’d like but longer than I should. : ) Yesterday, as everyday, I had to push myself to go to the gym and run errands but I was terribly exhausted after having overdone it the day before at the gym and running errands. Read More »