Every 9/11 we remember that hellish morning when we learned that planes had hit in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania. We know just where we were standing, what we were doing when we learned of the attack. One young man, an Oakland firefighter who went to New York as part of the mobilization of…
Read More »Relationships
I love Christmas, but my boyfriend says no to all that
Thinking ahead to the December holidays, here’s a question that was sent to my Mixed and Matched column in the Jweekly: My boyfriend is Jewish and I’m not. I really love Christmas and he doesn’t want to have it in our apartment. I’m not religious; I just love all the fun things about Christmas….
Read More »Are the High Holy Days a good time to introduce my non-Jewish boyfriend to Jewish services?
This common question for this time of year came to me via my Mixed and Matched column in the Jweekly. I am getting serious about my boyfriend (who is not Jewish) and I want him to understand what’s important to me about being Jewish. I’m thinking that this year I should take him with me…
Read More »Apologies, Forgiveness & Forgetting – are they all good?
“The first to apologize is the bravest. The first to forgive is the strongest. The first to forget is the happiest.” This statement, from Rabbi Ken Cohen, is truly worth considering Apologize? I know people who can’t get the words, “I’m sorry” out of their mouths. They sometimes will say, “I’m sorry if I…
Read More »I don’t like the way emotions make me feel!
I don’t like the way emotions make me feel! This classic teenage line was spoken by my own daughter during a teen *moment*. She knew what she was saying was silly but she also hated the roller coaster of emotion that teens are heir to. We all have feelings that we’d like to discard…
Read More »Passover Eating
Have you noticed that when we go without leavened foods we kind of freak out? Suddenly people need cups and cups of sugar to make it all up to them. These same people may eat very little leavened food as part of their regular diet but the forbidden-ness seems to do things to our…
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