Building a Jewish Life HomepageBuilding a Jewish Life

Becoming Jewish Without Questioning Your Sanity

You are here: Home / Posts for gender differences

Orthodox Women Being Patronized by Feminists? Oh, Linguistic Irony!

I discovered a blog post today titled Frum, Fashion, and Feminism on the Jewish Women’s Archive’s Jewesses with Attitude blog. It started so well: talking about fashion becoming more open to modest designs and the orthodox women who are working towards that end (including the fabulous bloggers Chavi and Hadassah). Then I ran into the […]

A Response to a Very Good Question: Why Not Fake It ‘Til You Make It?

I saw a great question about conversions. I decided to post the question and my answer to that question here because I think that’s a struggle the overwhelming majority of orthodox converts face at some point in their process. How would you respond? THE QUESTION: Not to risk offending anybody, but I’d be curious as […]

Feminism or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Mechitza

I personally love the mechitza. (Within limits: so long as I can hear the service and can see the Torah reading.) For those of you who are unfamiliar with the mechitza, it is a separation between the genders in orthodox (or some conservadox – conservative leaning towards orthodox – services). It is usually very pretty, […]

Orthodoxy and Eating Disorders: Kosher Discipline to the Extreme

As someone new to full Jewish observance, I can tell you that the #1 practical lesson you learn from observance is discipline. This is also probably the hardest for people to learn, especially for us spoiled Americans! We take pride in not being “tied down” by rules, people, whatever. (Leaving aside the argument that we […]

Halachic Discussion: Is Red an Immodest Color for Women?

I was reading Halichos Bas Yisrael and came across an interesting point: “Bright red clothing is considered immodest.” It was then grouped with tight clothing (which is an interesting line in itself!). I had heard that “bright red” (as distinguished from shades like “burgundy red”) is considered an immodest color before, but primarily from people […]

Liberal Conversion: The Gateway Drug

It seems that most orthodox converts you meet are also liberal Jewish converts. When we liberal converts begin an orthodox conversion, we all seem to think we’re crazy to be going from a liberal movement to orthodoxy. But no, you’re certainly not alone. I had the great pleasure to meet with an amazing rabbi who […]

Just wanted to share an article…

Here’s a really wonderful article by Rucheli: The Back of the Bus. For those of you who don’t know, there are some buses in Israel (and a couple in America) that segregate men and women. I knew that it had to do with tznius, but thought it had more to do with avoiding accidental touching […]