I heard recently that one of the members of my shul, who I’ve known for years is a heavily into gardening, a bit of a fascination of my own. Then I learned that another fellow is into modifying trucks and…
Tag: community
Older singles are not welcome here
Why are you living in my community? Why haven’t you realized that you’ve exhausted all of your dating options within a 300 mile radius and the only people left to date are out of your hashkafic realm or not halachically…
Get out of your comfort zone
There’s a certain comfort I get from being uncomfortable when I walk into shul on shabbos morning in the middle of laining, the rabbi is sitting up front, the entire shul can see me go to the other end to…
Interview with an Off The Derech community leader
You may remember that guy who was trying to sell his olam habah on Ebay, but Rachmuna Litzlon AKA Ari Mandel is also one of the Off The Derech community leaders online. Between his overly active Facebook page, groups, twitter,…
How many Jews does it take to…
How Many Jews Does It Take To… by CM Fried There’s no set number of Jews that it takes to form a community, but there’s a minimum you need just to make it functional. The minyan thing is obvious, yes,…
72 frum things that make me cringe
I know a lot of you are going to agree with me here, but for those of you who aren’t into cringing – I can pretty much admit that I’ve set myself up for a sequel to this post called…
Being frum is not a crime
I know there must be a lot of you out there who think I hate orthodoxy and this is why I make fun of it, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. The fact is that I myself am…
Are we making Rubashkin into some sort of hero?
There’s another video devoted to the “tragedy” of Rubashkin and the sadness that his family is going through. It seems in my mind that he’s being made into some sort of hero, there is no longer a focus on the…
Are you just a Jew on shabbos?
For most people, morning minyan is a way of life. Either they find the virtue of starting their day with connection to God, their families force them to go or they feel driven to complete a fledgling minyan. I myself…
Tzedakah: The frum communities best attribute
I would like to retell a story that I heard from Rabbi Levine of San Jose’s Congregation Am Echad: An Israeli man had just finished collecting money in South Florida to marry off his daughter, he was on his way…
Orthodox Gays struggling to establish community in Israel
The biggest challenge in my mind to the Frum Gay community which is just in its beginnings is trying to introduce itself into mainstream orthodoxy, this is toughest because you can never hope or imagine to change the halacha, because…
Is communal pressure to marry too high?
An old friend of mine called me in tears the other night, he had just been to his best friends wedding and he couldn’t help but fear alone and like he was never going to get married. He asked me…
My response to Rabbi Steven Pruzansky’s article on Orthopraxy
There’s been a lot of talk in the Jewish Blogging world about the following article written by Rabbi Steven Pruzansky in this past weeks Jewish Press. I have copied and pasted the article here with my responses to each of…
San Francisco is gay
I have come to realize that the gay community at large is a curiosity to me. No, I am not gay nor do I have any interest in being gay, but just like the Chassidic community intrigues me so does…
New novel about a frum girl struggling with her sexuality
Gravity by Leanne Lieberman is a fictional story about a young orthodox girl struggling with her sexuality, it’s a simple take on the whole issue of being orthodox and gay, and ever since my friend came out of the closet…
First impressions of Dallas
I really haven’t been here long enough to write a post, but I just wanted to get something down so I can compare it to something I will most probably write later, should I stay here, as of now I…