Category archive for ‘HOLIDAYS’ rss

  • Eight Nights to Renew Your Inner Jewish Child

    12/20/11 • (5)

    Happy Chanukah to all my readers! The festival of lights is a good time to remember our Jewish holidays are for everyone. So even if you’re over 12, light that chanukiyah with pride. All eight nights.

  • The December Dilemma Is a Choice

    12/01/11 • (6)

    I thought a lot about the Jewish ‘December Dilemma’ before putting up my holiday tree this year. I kept coming back to one question. What, exactly, are we afraid of in the first place?

  • Fifteen Christmases and an Eitz Moed

    11/29/11 • (7)

    Last December, on a Jewish journey and with my possessions in storage, I celebrated my first tree-free holiday season. This year, officially Jewish and back in my own apartment, I’m finally faced with the December Dilemma. Jews don’t put up Christmas trees, and there’s no such thing as a Chanukah bush. And then I got an idea.

  • First You Do (the High Holy Days), and Then You Hear

    11/14/11 • (4)

    The High Holy Days that marked the beginning of 5772 also marked the end of my first observed Jewish year. I expected the Days of Awe to be fulfilling. But what was missing turned out to be the best part of all.

  • Passoverwrought

    4/26/11 • (13)

    Plan all the phoney matzah meals you want, or avoid it completely and subsist on permitted meats and quinoa. No amount of advance planning will take all the sting out of observing Passover. Nor should it.

  • “…But one of the worst is commercialism.”

    1/18/11 • (0)

    In this second of two tardy Yuletide posts, I realize just how crass a secular Christmas can be, by spending my first one as an outsider looking in.

  • Oy to the World

    1/10/11 • (2)

    When a well-meaning friend asked me on Christmas Eve, “Is being at temple tonight hard for you?” they were surprised I said, “No.” I wasn’t surprised at all.

  • The Miracle of the Smoldering Carpet

    12/02/10 • (7)

    Lessons from my first-ever first night of Chanukah: check wooden matches for cracks; don’t use the match box to put out the carpet; …and be prepared to feel six-years-old all over again.

  • Target Corp: How About a Nice Menorah for Christmas?

    11/15/10 • (10)

    Why does Target Corp. think delivering Chanukah menorahs by Christmas Eve is a selling point for Jews?