Longform
How My Bat Mitzvah Turned Me Off Judaism
Jews have been systematically excluded everywhere we’ve lived and a bat mitzvah is a way of stating that we have arrived.
4
Do Bar Mitzvahs Prepare Us For Adult Anxiety?
“Years before I could legally drive or vote, I completed a psychological gauntlet. It was my introduction to the stresses of adult life.
Why My Bat Mitzvah Was The Happiest Day Of My Life
“Everything memorable — the invitations I wrote by hand; the bright-pink dress that my mother sewed for me; the food — was homemade.”
3
Why Do We Obsess About Bar Mitzvah Torah Readings — When There’s Little Textual Basis For Them?
“This most iconic ritual has very little basis in Jewish texts.”
Eat, Drink + Think
Everyone Loves Israeli Chocolate Spread. Even Gwyneth Paltrow.
Who doesn’t like Pesek Zman chocolate spread? Gwyneth Paltrow is certainly a fan.
The Global Economic Crisis — Seen In The Outstretched Hands of Berlin’s Poor
A vandal has busted out the bank’s windows. Despite my deep anarchistic sympathies, I am revolted by the act. Berlin has seen enough violence.
For Better Or Worse, “Nocturama” Is The Movie Of The Moment
Bertrand Bonello’s film follows millennial terrorists who bomb Paris. But it’s what they do next that’s shocking.
Amid New York’s Abundance, Embracing A Life Of Diminished Expectations
Carol Bergman thought she’d never come home to New York. But illness and the recession made it a necessity.
How To Garden Like Colette and Virginia Woolf
Women were the world’s first planters and cultivators. 20 stories above Manhattan, Susan Brownmiller is continuing in that tradition.
Even Now, My Jewish Mother Still Brings Me Home
Laura Zam traveled far and wide to escape her Jewish mother; today, she still finds herself coming back home.
How My Daughter’s Bat Mitzvah Almost Didn’t Happen
At the time of the Holocaust in Hungary, it would have been hard to imagine any sort of Jewish future — least of all a Bat Mitzvah in America.
