I Don’t Want to be a Slutty Crayon

By Simi Lichtman February 21, 2013

“Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it,” says Cady in that memorable scene from Mean Girls (admittedly, pretty much every scene from Mean Girls is memorable). What follows is a parade of high school girls, each clad in…

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Drunk Dialing and Other Spiritual Practices for Purim

By Lex Rofes February 21, 2013

Jon Stewart has occasionally joked about the inferiority of Jewish holidays when compared with our Christian counterparts. He’s lamented the cardboard taste of matzah, expressed his jealousy at the yummy chocolates given out on Easter, and generally represented the sentiments of many Jewish Americans that our calendar of holidays is not quite so fun. Well,…

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Mordecai Unchained: Tarantino, Haman, and the Catharsis of Violence

By John Propper February 20, 2013

Some four years ago, when I left my home in the humid Georgia foothills for college in the snowy Midwest, a member of my family gave me two pieces of advice: “Number one: If someone hits you, or hurts you, you get ‘em back,” they said. “Stand up and don’t let ‘em win. “Number two:…

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Candy Cane Cheese Cake Hamantaschen? Yes.

By H. B. Rubin February 19, 2013

The times that I’ve made Hamantaschen in the past have always been in an affectionate haste around my kitchen table, with my grandmother’s well-worn cookbook pinned down by two generations of elbows and floury fingers. My mother and I flutter around the kitchen in hazy swirls, looking for circle-cutting cylinders, inventive ingredients to ad lib as creative…

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Lead Belly’s Cotton Pickin’ Purim

By Gabriel T. Erbs February 18, 2013

The day-end sea of black-and-white flooding out of Jerusalem’s yeshivas is a lesson in the pleasure of monochrome. At what seems like the same time every afternoon, thousands of frocked and bearded men turn Strauss Street into a conveyor belt of bobbing Borsalino hats. It’s amazing to watch during any day of the year. The…

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Esther’s gender; inter-faith Purim; queering the Megillah; and more. [Required Reading: Purim Edition]

By John Propper March 7, 2012

How do you tell the Purim story to kids? [Forward] Jewish tales often feature a lot of (ahem) adult content. The Torah/Tanakh is ripe with plenty of sex, violence, prejudice, and more. Sometimes the Torah warns us about the dangers of these things. Other times, like in the story of the Megillah, violence in particular…

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Suspended by skin color?; Student debt becomes overwhelming; Modern Purim lessons, and more [Required Reading]

By pkessler March 6, 2012

Suspended by Skin Color? [NY Times] New data from the Department of Education has shown that although African Americans comprise less than a fourth of the nation’s public school systems, their share of suspensions and other disciplinary action is disproportionately high, suggesting that they may face harsher disciplinary action in school. “Education is the civil…

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When Esther Met Frank-N-Furter

By akinman March 23, 2011

Halloween gives you candy. Purim gives you Hamantaschens. After slowly recovering from the ODing on poppy seed hamantaschens, and getting the noise of groggers out of my head, I look back on this past Purim and describe it in one word: scandalous. Every year, my congregation puts on a Purim Spiel. The play tells the…

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The Reading List: Helen Thomas in Playboy… Not What You Think

By Ben Sales March 21, 2011

The 90-year old journalist, made famous last year for telling Israeli Jews to go back to “Poland and Germany,” gets interviewed in Playboy. She keeps her clothes on, but it’s anti-Zionist porn. [Playboy] Purim is over, but below is the funniest Purim video I’ve yet seen, this time by a couple guys I know from Camp Ramah…

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St Patrick’s Day or the Fast of Esther?

By ahowie March 14, 2011

On college campuses this week, we’re all gearing up for two very important holidays: St Patrick’s Day — with lots of green beer — and Purim — with lots of wine and other substances.  Sadly, however, there is the little known Fast of Esther that coincides with St. Patty’s Day this year, which leads to…

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What’s my name again?

By lcuen March 11, 2011

Two years ago, an Egyptian student in my history of the modern middle east class referred to Jewish culture as stolen culture, the Mizrahis eat Arab food and the Ashkenazis eat schnitzel so, he concluded, basically Israel was a country of stolen identities. I’m usually pretty peacenik/organic-granola-and-free-lovin but for some reason that statement gave me…

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The Reading List: Video Edition!

By Ben Sales March 10, 2011

Yay new media! Today’s reading list will feature five videos–not including the two Purim videos we already posted. Thanks, YouTube! So, you want to go to rabbinical school… [CFIDSgurl] Here’s what happens when sheltered Orthodox college boys try to be risque. [The Lonely Turtle] Yet another Purim parody video. I’ll be honest: I haven’t watched…

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The Reading List: The Next Maccabeats?

By Ben Sales March 2, 2011

Better late than never: Not as good as those Hanukkah dreamboats, I think, but still fun. [Ein Prat Fountainheads] And you thought Natalie Portman couldn’t get any more amazing. [NYT] Turns out Italy isn’t as Catholic as it seems. [Pink Pangea] Where do you go if you’re a student in Egypt and things get ugly?…

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It’s Finally the Time to Make Hamentashen!

By kseeger February 23, 2010

With Purim right around the corner, I feel like it is appropriate for me to post about one of my favorite Jewish holiday cookies—Hamentashen! A hamentashen is a triangular cookie with a filling in the center (often fruit or poppyseed). It is funny to recognize the different stories behind the shape and symbolism of hamentashen….

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