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Fourteen Christmases and a Chanukiyah
Update 11/30/10: I am absolutely honored that the official Reform Judaism blog has cross-published this blog post today… I’m getting a bit tired of the inner amazement with which I keep experiencing...
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Sixteen Christmases and a Chanukah Bush
What a difference a year makes. Or two. During the 2010 holiday season, I celebrated my first Chanukah and spent my first year without a Christmas tree–thinking it was the first of many. Last year, I...
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What Would Jesus Not Do?
Shortly before Easter, during the middle of Passover week, I came across this curious blog post: “Sorry! Here’s Why Jesus Wouldn’t Join Today’s Church“. Every Jew reading this has already said the...
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Crashing the Jewish Survival Idol
It was the best of Shavuot. It was the worst of Shavuot. Maybe a little bit of both in each place that I experienced the “Festival of Weeks” this year to mark, as our traditions tells, God’s giving of...
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“Why don’t Jews believe in Jesus?”
When you wear a kippah full-time, it’s not uncommon for people to come up to you every now and then to ask you about Judaism. When I first put mine on in 2010, I found the questions a but unnerving....
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Playing Connect the Dots with God
A thoughtful post on the Coffee Shop Rabbi blog about Jews and Christmas trees moved me to respond today. As I commented there, regular readers know that I put up a tree every year, for the past three...
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Don’t Blame the Bible for Being a Marriage Equality Bigot
So that happened. Friday the American LGBTQ community walked on the moon. We will all remember where we were when we heard the news that, at long last, we had finally overcome. I was in my living room...
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No Longer a Pass for Popes on Bible Bigotry in America
(Update: 3:30 p.m.) I do not find inspiring the Vatican’s response to the controversy surrounding the Pope Francis meeting with Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis. The Vatican released a statement today...
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How Not to Be a Holiday Chauvinist
The end-of-year holidays are full of food, fun, and festivity for many. They needn’t also be full of religious bullying. There’s a social-media meme floating around this holiday season suggesting that...
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Twenty Christmases and an Eitz Hamoedim
This year, my partner, Ryan, and I celebrate year four of our Eitz Hamoedim. It’s a Hebrew term I coined meaning Tree of the Festivals. You can call it a Chanukah Bush, because why not? (And its...
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Would Obama Give an Address on Terrorism on Christmas Eve?
It would be hard to imagine an American president interrupting Christmas Eve, a holiday moment sacrosanct to millions of American families, with an 8 p.m televised address on terrorism and religious...
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The Casual Bigotry of Facebook Messenger
So today Facebook decided to turn the camera icon in the user interface of its massively popular Messenger app into an Easter egg. Not a metaphorical hidden-feature Easter egg. An actual graphic of an...
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Please Don’t “Shalom” Your Supermarket Jew
So I got “Shalom”ed in public again. Like clockwork, it happens every month or so. This time, it was in the coffee aisle at the supermarket. Actually, it’s often at the supermarket, as if Jewish...
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Fear No (One Else’s) Holiday
It’s Halloween once again, and if you’re a Jew like me that means you’re social media feeds are full of hand-wringing “Can Jews celebrate Halloween?” posts once again. Second in unnecessary angst only...
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Hebreo Rizado
After almost nine years, I’m done wearing a full-time kippah. Over the past year, I’ve kept my kippah off my head about as often as I’ve had it on. Better known to non-Jews as a yarmulke (its Yiddish...
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