Bar/Bat Mitzvah | The Blogs

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Jan 28, 2019, 2:58 PM

Bar mitzvahs in Slovakia

These Jewish life-cycle events are important not because they are novel, but because they add a link to a continuous chain

Josephine Schizer

Jan 24, 2019, 11:00 PM

‘Would You Like to Carry the Torah?’

Photo by Meir Pliskin Photography

In Modern Orthodox minyanim today, it is increasingly common for women to carry the Torah through the women’s section. However, even in minyanim where this is allowed, there is a reluctance on the part of many women to accept...

Nancy Strichman

Jan 9, 2019, 6:14 PM

Mazal Tov for Good

School of Peace for refugee children in Lesbos, Greece. (Courtesy of Lisa Kristine)

Wish me a mazal tov because we just finished happily hosting loads of relatives for our daughter’s bat mitzvah! While she had been busy planning her Torah portion and dvar torah (Did you know that Harry Potter and Moses...

Jan 3, 2019, 10:09 PM

Seeds of redemption

This past Thanksgiving I had the good fortune of spending quality time with my tweenager on a mother/daughter bat mitzvah trip in Israel. Organized by Emunah and led by Rebbitzin Lisa Septimus, yoetzet halacha of the Five Towns and Great...

Jan 1, 2019, 11:27 PM

Bar Mitzvah Re-Visited: Linguist Research and Dictionary Scorecard

Many times in my teaching and writing I have expressed my dismay at the rabbi’s, teacher’s, or parent’s translation of the term Bar/Bat Mitzvah as son/daughter of a Mitzvah. It sounds like bad English, bad Hebrew, and bad half-Aramaic to me. ...

Dec 17, 2018, 9:41 PM

Are ‘sinful’ Jews still Jews?

Can pornstars, strippers, Playboy models, even alcoholics etc. etc. etc. still be considered Jewish? I’ll admit, this isn’t something I’ve given serious thought to before. If you’d asked me, anyone who was born to a Jewish family is Jewish, period. Beyond...

Joseph C. Kaplan

Nov 30, 2018, 2:03 AM

Still Bound for Glory After all these Years

I’ve been writing this column for the Jewish Standard/Times of Israel for almost three years, but it’s not my first steady gig as a columnist. More than 50 years ago, while a senior at Yeshiva University, I wrote a column...

Andy Blumenthal

Nov 26, 2018, 2:52 AM

Being “super duper” kosher

So maybe I grew up in different times. In those days, my parents who were orthodox, only had kosher food and Glatt Kosher meat--that was a given. I think their parents in Europe though didn't know anything from Glatt kosher--in...

Andy Blumenthal

Nov 25, 2018, 7:59 AM

Bring Back Every Jew

(Andy Blumenthal)

This was a beautiful picture of the Rebbe that I found here in South Florida. One thing that I so love about Chabad is their unconditional love for every Jew. No matter who or what you are--there is a...

Nov 18, 2018, 5:32 PM

Why All Your Mitzvahs Should NOT Be Done Secretly

Some time, somewhere along the way it seems that the idea was spread, that our mitzvahs — those acts we do for the benefits for others — must be done in secret. That is certainly true for some of them. A...

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