In a jaw-dropping moment of public relations FAIL, the Israeli political party Shas released an election ad stereotyping and bashing Russian converts (perhaps all Israeli converts?). Here is the video. There are Hebrew subtitles on the video, but if you click the CC button on the bottom so that captions are on, the English translation […]

As promised, the new and improved “conversion test” is posted! I took it down almost a year ago, but before then, the test was the number one search engine path to this blog. Hopefully you newbies will find something on the blog worth staying for after you’ve seen the test! It is very long, and […]

If you haven’t picked up on this yet, I’m a Type A list maker extraordinaire. I love lists and checkboxes and forms. This means that the beginning of both the Jewish and secular years make me re-think my lists and habits. It’s always much worse as the secular year approaches because it seems the entire […]

Quite literally. Yesterday was my first day in a modern Hebrew language class. I had forgotten how much I love learning languages!  I wanted to share a funny story with you from my first day: Moreh (Teacher): “Kochava, tell me a word with the letter reish.”Kochava: “Uhhh…rasha?”Moreh: “LOLZ” The day’s other contenders included, but were not […]

Whether changing your name for marriage, divorce, or other reasons, American society has seen fit to make each of us reinvent the wheel.  Apology: Sorry, this is very US-centric. Despite the fact that thousands of people change their names each year (the BBC estimates 58,000 in the UK alone in 2011), it is as though name […]

Mazal tov to Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who will be the next Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth! Current Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks will retire this September. Lord Rabbi Sacks is a tough act to follow, but hopefully the world will give Rabbi Mirvis a fair chance. Commonwealth, you say? I thought he was only the […]

I hope you’re all prepared for the end of the world on Friday! I’m relieved to know that I can skip preparing for Shabbat. Erev Shabbos gets so crazy, it’ll be nice to relax while the world ends. But seriously. I’ve been spending a lot of time updating the pages. The Facebook page has also […]

Chances are that if you became religious later in life (in any movement), you have had times when you were terrified that you were DOIN IT RONG. Whatever “it” was.  Right or wrong, you get worried. Or embarrassed. This usually results in avoiding the issue entirely or avoiding it when other people are around. See, for […]

…Because I’m a sucker for pain, I suppose.  I make no promises about schedules, quality, or political correctness. But if anyone decides to get stalkerish again, you’ll be hearing from the police, my lawyer, and 150lbs of angry dogs. I bet even the three legged cat will get in on that. However, I don’t yet […]

I’ll spoil the end of the review for you: Don’t buy this book. It will do you more harm than good, whether you’re reform or orthodox or whatever else.  Disclaimers. Because I’m Not an Expert. I received this book for free, but not to review it. I received it in a overflow book giveaway arranged […]