The media had a grand time recently when tens of thousands of Jewish women stopped wearing their wigs out of concern that they might contain hair that had been offered to an idol. The more revealing story, though, lay not in the deep dedication to the Second Commandment but in the feeding frenzy of the Fourth Estate.
Meet Lorne Hughes, a young non-Jewish gentleman from the Virgin Islands clad in a form-fitting black outfit, who \”regularly spends his weekends dancing with 13-year-olds at bar mitzvahs,\” according to an article that appeared in The New York Times on May 30, 2003.
In our sex-saturated — and in fact, as a result, sexist — society, men and women eschewing handshakes to avoid any semblance of misplaced sexuality might seem a bit much to many.
Many audiences and reviewers have found \”Trembling Before G-d\’s\” portrayal of the anguish faced by Jews who want to remain Orthodox but see themselves as homosexual to be compelling.
Whatever the reason, Judaism\’s summer-season holiday has come to be neglected by much of the American Jewish community.
If one didn\’t know better (and many, unfortunately, don\’t), one might have thought that the new millennium had dawned 11 months early, and had heralded an entirely unexpected second coming in Israel — that of Jim Crow, with non-Orthodox Jews as his victims.
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.