(This article first appeared in my Mixed and Matched column in the J-weekly on November 5, 2018) Dear Dawn: My pregnant daughter just learned her baby is a boy. She and I just had an animated discussion because she announced to me she doesn’t plan to circumcise him. Her non-Jewish husband is circumcised and on my…
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Dear Dawn: My son Joey’s bar mitzvah was scheduled for June of this year and now it can’t happen as planned. Our synagogue is closed. Some of my son’s peers are having a Zoom bar mitzvah on their scheduled date and planning to have a chance to read their Torah portion to the congregation at a…
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Thursday morning I got up early for a 7am virtual bat mitzvah. Many years ago a young woman went through some of my classes and decided to convert. I connected her to a rabbi. She became a Jew. In a few years she met a man and fell in love. He wasn’t Jewish so we…
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(This article originally appeared in the J-weekly Mixed and Matched column.) Dear Dawn: My son Joey’s bar mitzvah was scheduled for June of this year and now it can’t happen as planned. Our synagogue is closed. Some of my son’s peers are having a Zoom bar mitzvah on their scheduled date and planning to have…
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(Family bat mitzvah) A letter to my Mixed and Matched Column in the J-Weekly Dear Dawn: How do I encourage a do-nothing tween to want a bat mitzvah? At 11, my daughter doesn’t want to do anything except watch YouTube all day. Complains about going to Sunday school but has fun once there. I suspect as…
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A mohel performs a circumcision during a bris (or brit milah) ceremony. (Cheskel Dovid/Wikimedia CC BY 3.0) Circumcision still a volatile topic I received the following letter sent to my Mixed and Matched column at the J-weekly. Dear Dawn: I came across your response to a Jewish mother who was upset that her daughter didn’t want to circumcise…
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