Marla Cohen, at The Blogs

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Dec 3, 2023, 6:00 AM

Believe All Women — Including Dinah

The Rape of Dinah (Wikimedia Commons)

A lot happens in today’s parsha, Vayishlach. Jacob continues on his journey back to Canaan. He encounters his brother Esau, and they appear to come to terms with their past and then go their separate ways. Jacob has another son, and his beloved, Rachel, dies....

May 8, 2021, 4:57 AM

When idols fall

When I read the allegations against the Reform Movement’s Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman, I felt exhausted. How many more #MeToo stories can there be? The answer seems to be: Too many to count. The story is all too nauseatingly familiar. Once again we find that a...

Mar 4, 2021, 10:21 PM

Saying the shechecheyanu in the parking lot

Blessed are you Adonai our God, sovereign of the universe, who has granted us life, sustained us and enabled us to reach this occasion. Shivering in the parking lot of New City Jewish Center, I thought for sure I’d feel something a bit more than...

Jan 26, 2021, 8:07 PM

Oh, say can you see — after four years

After four years of tumult, there was no way I was going to miss the moment that Joseph R. Biden, Jr. took the oath of office and became the 46th President of the United States of America. Not to mention seeing the first woman of...

Oct 16, 2020, 7:51 PM

Somewhere between all and nothing

About midway through the first day of Rosh Hashanah services, I noticed some movement out of the corner of my left eye. It was a couple of people at our very socially distanced service; they were pointing across the sanctuary. Then I noticed movement out...

Sep 4, 2020, 6:13 PM

Sign up for shul — it’s the new normal

Since I can't take shul for granted anymore, I ask: what else do we change? Do we shorten the service? The Torah reading? Welcome to the brave new world of COVID-19 worship

Jun 25, 2020, 9:59 PM

Knocking the symbols of hate from their pedestals

Photo courtesy of b_watkins under a Creative Commons license.

The statues are finally coming down. Across this nation, 155 years after the end of the Civil War, the symbols of the Confederacy are being vanquished. Since Memorial Day, when George Floyd gasped his last breath under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, at...

May 15, 2020, 2:02 AM

Coronavirus and the Jewish space/time continuum

A robust selection of pajamas... (Erich Ferdinand)

I miss shul and the JCC, and Havdalah via Zoom just isn't the same; it’s as if someone hit an enormous pause button for Jewish life with no plans of releasing it any time soon

Jan 31, 2020, 7:58 PM

Whose history is this anyway?

It was my first week in high school in American history class at the then-brand-new Arts Magnet High School in downtown Dallas when I encountered Haym Salomon. I learned, as we read aloud from the textbook by turn, that he was a financier of the...

Dec 14, 2019, 12:04 AM

Love. Labour. Lost.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn at a rally in Stainton Village in Middlesbrough, while on the General Election campaign trail. Wednesday December 11, 2019. (Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)

The party was the political home for the vast majority of Great Britain’s Jews. How did it become so unlivable?

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About Me

Marla Cohen is a freelance writer in Rockland County, New York.