Building a Jewish Life

No, I’m not pregnant. But “b’sha’ah tovah!” is the traditional well-wish to women who are.  Before we continue, let’s review when it’s ok to assume a woman is pregnant:  Now that we’ve covered that, what do you say to congratulate a pregnant woman? You can say “congrats!” There’s nothing “wrong” with that. But traditionally, Jews […]

If you’re an American like me, you’re used to birthdays being A Big Deal. But…they’re really not a big deal in the Jewish world. But on the flip side, you’ll now have a lot of them! Let us count them: Your English day of birth Your Hebrew day of birth The English date of your […]

Well, color me surprised. Apparently an Israeli government committee has proposed a worldwide program to interest people in Judaism and conversion. You know, since they really love the converts, conversion candidates, and patrilineal Jews they already have in Israel. #NoNotBitterWhyDoYouAsk From the article: Last week a committee appointed by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs suggested […]

Sure, let’s jump right into a hot, emotional topic. Autopsies.  A strange revelation about myself and my Jewish journey: Jewish death practices are a big part of how I got interested in Judaism. When I was young, my mother became certified to sell burial plots. (Yes, apparently you have to get a particular education and […]

Over Pesach, I did some light magazine reading, as orthodox people seem to do in huge numbers. (Not normally my thing, but somehow it happened this week.) The Orthodox Union (OU) publishes a couple of free magazines that are sent to member synagogues, and I picked up two of them. I’ll share two of the […]

I don’t know about you, but I frequently confused these words for years (and didn’t even know I was confusing them). They just sounded so similar to my ear! Especially since people can slur these words when speaking quickly with an American accent. Honestly, I don’t know that I’d ever encountered the word “geula,” so […]

When talking about conversion, it’s easy to focus on the bad stuff, the challenging stuff, the frustrating stuff, the embarrassing stuff. I mean, that’s really kind of the point of this blog: helping you through those points to make them less painful. Inspiration and warm fuzzies isn’t my strength. I haven’t been criticized as a […]

Since we were just speaking of Sephardim, you should know about this really cool band! I feel like I should put air quotes around “band” because this doesn’t strike me as your average make-money-sell-merch-get-groupies band stereotype I have in my head. It feels kinda…educational. But in the enjoyable way. The really enjoyable way! No really, […]

Just in case you hadn’t heard about this before, Spain recently passed a law that grants (ok, expedites, it’s not automatic) citizenship to descendants of Sephardi Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492. How on earth could you do that, you ask? A list of common surnames! I mean, duh, right? Sure. That law […]

It’s Amazon Prime Day! Christmas for modern commercialism! How wonderful, right? Of course it would fall on a Jewish fast day. What two different energies to a day could there be? But that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of Prime Day.  There is no problem with buying things on Prime Day when it’s also […]