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Showing posts from October, 2009

Frum Jews and RV's

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RV's don't usually conjure up images of frum Jews, but an enterprising business has found a way to make them a perfect fit! Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Why don't the women dance?

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I just spent Simchat Torah in one of the frummer neighborhoods of New York City. You know the type, every block a shtibel, an Agudah, and even the Young Israels are no longer modern. Black hats abound. There are plenty of centrist Orthodox, but they kind of blend in with the Yeshivish crowd. And in no shul do the women actually dance during hakafot on Simchat Torah. Instead, they watch the men. I actually grew up with that model. When hakafot came around, the mechitza would be opened up so the women could watch the men dance. When I was little, I used to dance & happily wave to my mother. But even in my late teens I started doing my own thing for Simchat Torah and went to more modern neighbrhoods and more modern shuls where the women always danced. This was the first time I'd been back to my old neighborhood for ST in something like 20 years. I didn't go to my parents' shul for hakafot - instead I went to a more modern minyan that always used to have women danci