Tag: religion

  • Another brit, another Jew.

    Yesterday we participated in what must be the oldest Jewish ritual, decended straight from (poor) Abraham. I do not envy Sarah, by the way, who had to deal with the healing of not only an 8-day-old with a bruised penis, but a moody teenager and her senior-citizen husband.  Yes, the brit mila. Ritually slicing and…

  • Once in 28 years.

    I’m the type to get excited by the rare traditions in Judiasm. The kind I never heard about in my two decades of formal Jewish education. So waking up at 5:45  this morning to join a minyan on a Tzur Hadassah roof top didn’t really bother me, even after a late night of cooking and…

  • Birkat Kohanim at the kotel.

    I had never seen it, and my dad is of the priestly persuasion, so the three of us went down to the kotel in the Old City yesterday to hear/see/be present at the ginormous Birkat Kohanim for chol hamoed Sukkot. Birkat Kohanim – known as ‘duchaning’ in Ashkenaz circles – is like a representation of…

  • And a happy 'queer rite of Jews' to you.

    Because I already have posted my past homemade sukkot, New York and ghetto Israeli style, I figured I’d post my first own semi-respectable Tzur Hadassah sukka: Spacious because we have a decent-sized mirpeset. Sturdy, because we have paychecks that can buy metal poles. And fun, because I did a search for ‘sukkot’ on Google Images…

  • A covenant, a conversion, a first.

    For me, there aren’t daily Israeli-firsts anymore; it’s more like periods of firsts washing up on the shore. I pick them up and hold them to my ear and listen to the waves of meaning they try to offer. At least, some of the time. I participated as a support/witness for a friend undergoing conversion…

  • In appreciation of צהר, or small windows.

    I attended a secular wedding last night; if it wasn’t my first Israeli secular wedding, then I have only been to one or two before this. The secular Israeli wedding is something I don’t fully grasp. A Jewish wedding is so chock full of beautiful, wacky and wild traditions, why not have that be a…

  • Religion: gets high with a little help from its friends.

    I’ve always suspected this myself, but a Hebrew University researcher is daring enough to say it out loud in a recent article: Hebrew University researcher: Moses was tripping at Mount Sinai On perusing the momentous occasion of Moses’ trip up Mount Sinai to collect and deliver God’s words to the people, Professor Benny Shanon is…

  • Sephardi synanogues of Katamonim.

    Something I’m going to miss about my little Jerusalem hometown of Katamonim are the amazing Sephardi beitay knesset that pepper the streets: Most of the residents in this neighborhood are some strain of Mizrachi, mainly Kurdish, Bucharian, Moroccan or Yemenite. The synagogues carpeted and fluorescently lit, reflect that. I feel 100% comfortable attending services at…