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Yesterday morning, the blog hit a milestone I never thought I’d see: half a million views (not including feed views). Half a million. Do you guys have nothing better to do with your time than read my rantings and ravings and speculation? Guess not. I hope you’ve found something that helped you, since I started […]

In a small community, the etiquette of saying “Gut Shabbos” or “Shabbat Shalom” is so obvious: you say it to any Jew you meet on the street. In New York…this is not so clear cut.  Based on rants to various people and their responses, everyone seems to agree that, in principle, it is still good

It’s back. The terrible quinoa debate from last year (and maybe years before that, I don’t know). I wasn’t following the debate last year until during Pesach, when Jewish housewives everywhere lamented the horribleness of the quinoa insanity at every Pesach meal I attended: Is quinoa “allowed” on Pesach? Is it kitniyot? Is it covered

It seems like every single (as in “not in a relationship”) conversion candidate finally has the day when “it” hits: the overwhelming desire to create a profile on a Jewish dating website. You may not even plan to “use” it, but you need to make one in order to look through the profiles of others.

I know, this sounds like a “typical Debbie Downer post from Kochava.” But I don’t think it is, though what I have to say will probably stir a lot of emotions. Some of you may not know (and those of you who do may have kept silent) that psychological testing is a growing trend in

Erika, the always insightful and clever blogger at BlackGayJewish, wrote a very interesting post recently about her friend’s decision to consider getting an orthodox Conversion 2.0. The post was very honest and raised good questions for a person considering “upgrading” their conversion (I hate using that word, but it often conveys the feeling the candidate

Just a quick thought before Shabbat this week. Reading this week’s parsha, Yitro, I was hit with the desire to read Ruth. The story of Ruth has never struck the same chord in me as it seems to with other converts and conversion candidates, but today something did strike me. Boaz, in his first conversation to

As a lawyer, linguist, and all-around nerd, I like words. A lot. I especially like fun words: unusual words for normal concepts, foreign slang, anachronisms, and words that are just fun to say. Mamish, davka, and shtark all fall into both the first and last category above. They are unusual-to-me words for very “normal” concepts,

Let’s momentarily get back to the practical, “don’t make a fool of yourself” advice that this blog is known for. In this topic especially, I welcome the comments of others. This post is based solely on what I’ve been able to pick up in approximately 10 years of reading and discussions with others. The problem:

Today, we’re going to discuss something heavy, and I’m going to share one of my “conversion woe” stories.  A rabbi once asked me inappropriate questions. Nothing physically inappropriate happened, and he didn’t look like he was relishing every detail of the answers he made me give, but it was inappropriate and exploitative nonetheless. Unfortunately for