Every year an equal number of Jewish boys and girls are born – but twenty-something years later, there are far more chuppah-minded women than men. The shortage of marriageable Jewish men is well-known, but the mystery of their disappearance remains unsolved for most of us. It’s called the “c” word, and men are supposedly notoriously afraid of it. So what are we supposed to do about that? Western society seems to think that the solution is to just give up on commitment and let boys be boys. I thought about

Amamzeir, contrary to popular misconception, is not a child born out of wedlock but a child who is the product of an invalid union, (such as a child born to a married woman from another man). Halachically, being born as a mamzeir is an indelible blemish; a mamzeir can never marry into the Jewish people and his descendants retain this status forever. It is hard to reconcile our Western sensibilities with the idea that a person can be put in a spiritually intractable situation through no fault of his own.

Recently, at the Shabbat table, my husband asked the children what gifts in their lives make them feel loved by God. It was an interesting question and produced answers from the children which were particularly illuminating for us as parents to hear. But the question also got me thinking and helped me articulate one of the greatest gifts in my life: the gift of insight and understanding. Often, in the writing of my new book, Circle, Arrow, Spiral, Exploring Gender in Judaism, I felt as if I was piecing together

Way back in the Jewish day school I attended, where some of us ate only food with the most stringent of heksherim (certified kosher stamp) and others of us didn’t keep kosher at all, we were all part of one (sometimes) happy class. Baltimore was small then, with just one Jewish girls’ day school. It not only accommodated all the Jews in the city, it was their link and comfortable place in Judaism. In the classroom, where we all studied together for Bible tests and made plans together to wriggle

An acquaintance of mine who writes for a secular women’s magazine here in Israel called to ask if I would be willing to be interviewed about the hot topic of the day. “I want to hear about how you feel about being relegated to the back of the bus, about being made invisible, about having rabbis take control of your life. I want to hear your real voice.” “Would it be okay if my ‘real voice’ says something else?” I asked her via e-mail. I wonder if she was aware