Members of the Scribe
From Intermarried Couple to Observant Jewish Family
When my wife and I speak to groups about our family’s journey to Judaism, inevitably we are asked about our ...
Abortion, Birth Control, and the Complexity of Halacha (Jewish Law)
I recently came across a copy of the June 28 issue of The Jewish Press . The Jewish Press is an Orthodox ...
Mourning the Loss of a Non-Jewish Parent
“Ima, Aunt Angela is trying to reach you. I know it’s grandma! I want to go to her funeral!” My ...
Top 5 American Jewish Women Most People Have Never Heard Of
One of the biggest pleasures in writing American Jewish women’s history is discovering the immensely talented, hardworking, committed women whose ...
West and Schwartz, Dreaming at the Movies
When it comes to 20th-century Jewish authors, it’s Bellow, Roth, and Salinger who generally grab headlines. But their immediate predecessors—Delmore Schwartz and Nathanael ...
A Word on Who I Am
A few months ago I finished Pete Townshend’s autobiography, Who I Am . I can’t say I was surprised to ...
Not All Autobiographical Elements Are Created Equal
I get this question all the time: How autobiographical is your novel?The book’s style, setting, and protagonist invite the question: ...
My Biggest Love
My third book was published this week. Needless to say, I’m somewhere between panic and excitement. It’s the first one in English ...
Only in Israel
Here’s something that just happened to me. I was walking with an American friend in the picturesque quarter of Neve-Tsedek ...
Consumer Vigilance and the Kosher Cookies-and-Cream Ice Cream Caper
Kosher food certification has come a long way in the past one hundred years (see my earlier posts on the Baff ...
A Lonely Golem
I was trying to figure out how to get people to buy My First Kafka from me directly instead of, ...
Scandal and Self-Correction in Kosher Food Certification
This past March, the owner of Doheny Glatt Kosher Meat Market, Los Angeles’s largest purveyor of kosher meat, was discovered smuggling repackaged ...