Helping mothers have it all

By Susan Freudenheim
Published on June 27, 2012

The much-discussed article in the July/August Atlantic magazine begins with a story that likely will be familiar to any working mother. The author, Anne-Marie Slaughter, is at an evening work event talking to very important, very professional people, and all that’s really on her mind is the plight of her teenage son, who’s floundering at home without her.

Dressing like my Jewish mother

Published on May 10, 2012

On Mother's Day, I'm going to wear my mother's jewelry. No, this isn't a mom’s day story about gender identity; it’s about Jewish identity and whether possessions can help pass it on.

A World Driven By Hate

By Ilana Angel
Published on March 21, 2012

Do’s and Don’ts When Visiting Your Boyfriend’s Parents

By Tamara Shayne Kagel
Published on September 16, 2011

Boomerang Kids

By Annie Korzen
Published on August 24, 2011

For non-Jewish mothers raising Jewish children, things can get complicated

Published on July 20, 2011

Lisa Shimel, who is not Jewish, celebrated Christmas with her Jewish husband until their first child was born; now they’ve added Chanukah. Deb Morandi works at Jewish Family Services, where she introduces intermarried families to Judaism, though she is not Jewish.

The Real Housewives of O.C. Are Back!

By Julia Bendis
Published on March 7, 2011

Segregated school affair: Fathers arrive in jail, mothers fail to show

Published on June 17, 2010

Thirty five men, fathers to Ashkenazi girls attending an illegally segregated school in the West Bank settlement of Immanuel, arrived at the Ma'asiyahu prison Thursday evening to serve a two-week sentence.

Cooking lessons

By Gina Nahai
Published on December 6, 2007

Reflections on cooking, life lessons and mothers and daughters.

Mom: Resist

By Wendy Mogel
Published on May 11, 2006

When stuck with a rebellious child, gluttonous and thieving, the Torah has a tidy solution: Kill him. Or her.

Comforting Mothers Without Mothers

By Adeena Sussman
Published on May 11, 2006

"My childhood skidded to a stop on a Tuesday afternoon in the middle of my 15th year, with my mother's first mammogram results," writes Hope Edelman in her moving new book, "Motherless Mothers: How Mother Loss Shapes the Parents We Become" (Harper Collins). For Edelman, her mother's illness and subsequent death from cancer two years later in 1981 were the beginning of a journey of loss, self-exploration and eventual emotional redemption that has spanned nearly a quarter-century and spawned three well-received books on the subject.

Party Pooper

By Carin Davis
Published on September 15, 2005

My college friends Jordy and Michelle are throwing a party -- a birthday party for their 1-year-old son. That's right, my former party 'til the break of dawn dormmates are hosting a luau for their little one. This should be good.

I walk into the Hawaiian-themed rager and am overwhelmed. It's like Tot Shabbat with leis. There are a dozen kids playing on the floor. How do my friends even know this many crawlers? Where did they find them? I can only imagine they rented them from the party store along with the tiki bar and folding chairs. And who are all these new mothers?

Making Sense of My Mother’s Death

By Rabbi Eli Hecht
Published on January 29, 2004

Recently, I was working at my school office planning a day of classes and interviews when I was notified of an incoming call from New York. It was my cousin, Shion, a hospital chaplain and a fine rabbi.

"Have you heard the news?" he asked.

I thought his voice sounded pensive and without waiting for an answer he went on to say, "There has been a fire, your mother didn't make it and your father is in the hospital."

Q & A With Jewtopia Creators Bryan Fogel and Sam Wolfson

By Amy Klein
Published on January 22, 2004

I'm standing in the foyer of the Coast Playhouse in West Hollywood talking to Bryan Fogel, the co-writer/co-producer/co-star of "Jewtopia" -- a play that parodies dating, JDating, interdating, rabbis, Passover seders, Purim, Chanukah bushes, bar mitzvahs, shofar blowing, other types of blowing, goyim, Asian fixations, synagogue memberships and, most of all, Jewish women and their overbearing mothers -- when this overbearing Jewish mother shamelessly accosts Fogel outside his dressing room to peddle her daughter to him.

Roadside Distraction

By Teresa Strasser
Published on July 10, 2003

I'm sitting at a Mobil station in Minneola, my feet propped up against the bottom frame of my car door. The door is swung open so I can take in the desert air, exhale my Camel Light into the breeze.

Look at Our Living Room!

By Gaby Wenig
Published on July 3, 2003

They need to talk more! They are being too quiet!"

That was the frantic, whispered assessment of Beverly Pomeranz, casting director for the new A&E series, "Makeover Mamas," as she watched the reaction of Ross and Jennifer Misher upon seeing their newly redecorated living room for the first time.

Material Instincts

By Gaby Wenig
Published on March 27, 2003

Every day before Dina Goldstein (not her real name) leaves the house to take her two young children to day care and herself to work, she grabs two bagels and two boxes of orange juice. After buckling the kids into the car, she gives them the bagels and the juice, and they eat breakfast in the car on the way to school.

"I just don't have time to get them ready, myself ready and feed everyone before I leave the house," said Goldstein, who works as a religious day school teacher.

Like Goldstein, many women find maintaining a family and a job overwhelming.

7 Days in the Arts

By Keren Engelberg
Published on October 31, 2002

7 Day in the Arts

Better With Age

By Jane Ulman
Published on May 9, 2002

"You're the oldest of all my friends' moms," my son, Danny, 11, tells me.

Like I don't know this. Or have a card for senior discounts or billions of cells that have lost their elasticity to prove it.

Hollywood Mitzvahs

By Mike Levy
Published on May 3, 2001

When one person helps another person, it's a mitzvah. When 1,500 people from 30 different organizations join together to help out in over 50 volunteering projects, it's Temple Israel of Hollywood's (TIOH) Mitzvah Day.

Chinese Box

By Gina Nahai
Published on April 26, 2001

So there's a fairy-tale wedding: a thousand guests in a flower-filled ballroom, a dozen violins playing Mozart, a grainy-voiced singer belting out an old Persian love song. The bride is 20 years old and ravishing, of course, but she's also blessed with charm and charisma, the kind of exuberance that turns heads and drags stares behind her. She's been breaking hearts since she was 14 years old and walked into a cousin's wedding in a frilly white dress and a wide lace headband. Now she dances on stage, next to the singer with the forlorn music, and the crystal beads on her wedding gown glow like fireflies in the dark.