Dear Yenta,
I am also 28 and go to my reunion this weekend from high school. I feel fat and ugly and unaccomplished, even nervous and excited. I feel a million things and like I could burst at the seams. Do you have any ideas on keeping my cool come Saturday night?
Sincerely,
Ten Years and Still Eighteen
Dear TYSE,
Some people have their lives figured out, some people don’t. Some people got fat, some people got hot, some people got sick, some people got svelte. Some people drink too much, some people became yogis and so on and so forth. In the end, who cares? Remember that your body, your heart, your career and all other elements of your being were formed by a real life full of real experiences, same with everyone else. Anyone judging you is denying their own complexity.
If I were to go to my reunion all over again I would have gone with a beer taped to my hand and no expectation of any depth. This is a HIGH SCHOOL reunion. Expect hugs and expect smiles and just ride the party wave, go home, and resume living as you did before. Placing any clout on the scenario is useless. They aren’t really judging you. And the ones that are suddenly fall off like barnacles because we aren’t in high school anymore. We are old now, like 28-years-old, and we have dreams. Dreams and high school drama don’t mix. So drink up, hug hard, and remember this is one night of your long and amazing life, a night all about remembering a yesterday that has already passed.
For inspiration, watch this clip from Oprah, “>www.send-email.org to ask anonymously.
The five things we get wrong in Jewish education and what we can all do to improve it. Notable people and events in the Jewish LA community. For generations, Moroccan Jewish mothers and grandmothers prepared their dafina on Friday, knowing that it would sustain their families on Saturday. The five things we get wrong in Jewish education and what we can all do to improve it. We may be able to tolerate an irrational mob that goes after anything associated with Israel, but academics whose lives revolve around the search for truth and knowledge? “Shavua” is an interactive journal woven with Jewish wisdom, inviting readers to pause, reflect and add their own thoughts to an ongoing Jewish conversation. For decades, the world’s biggest musical acts brought their concert tours through Israel: Michael Jackson, Madonna, U2, Paul McCartney, Pearl Jam, Alanis Morissette, Rihanna and Rage Against the Machine. The Haredi Public Party was created because the Haredi public deserves more than excuses, Israeli society deserves more than permanent confrontation, and the Jewish people deserve an Israel capable of reconciling Torah, responsibility and national unity. For more than 30 minutes, approximately 160 delegates took turns denouncing me by name for being a Zionist, and calling Zionism racism. Topp is departing Beth Jacob, where he has served as senior rabbi since 2009. He and his wife, Rebbetzin Jordana, are making aliyah. He didn’t ask the audience to overlook his disability; he showed us how it could become a source of power, beauty and artistic innovation. Rabbi Pini Dunner sees himself as sounding an alarm about what he describes as Qatar’s growing influence and ties to Hamas. These countries plotted – or at least one of them plotted – to advance peace agreements with Israel simply to lull it to sleep ahead of a war at a more convenient time. Or so the “sources” say. I think of how something as simple as a blanket can carry a person’s spirit, their story, their love, their hope. Because antizionists like El-Sayed interweave their antizionism with anti-Americanism and antisemitism, every self-respecting American Jew should work even harder to oppose him. It is crucial that El-Sayed be defeated so the Democratic Party will understand that being taken over by such extremists is the road to electoral oblivion. The scholar’s earlier affinity for the Jewish state is worth revisiting and appreciating, reminding us in this moment of uncertainty that more positive possibilities could very well emerge between two nations, a friendship as existed decades ago, renewed.
Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.
Editor's Picks
What Ever Happened to the LA Times?
Who Are the Jews On Joe Biden’s Cabinet?
No Labels: The Group Fighting for the Political Center
Latest Articles
Disarm, Verify, Withdraw. The Only Path Forward for Gaza
Plea — A poem for Parsha Shoftim
Remembering Elly Katz: She Came to Teach Us How
Evolution is the Goal of Textual Study
A Bisl Torah — If They’re Not Ready
A Moment in Time: What We Let Through
Print Issue: Education for Jewish Endurance | August 14, 2026
Elie Wiesel Film Premiere, JNF-USA Golf Tournament, AJC Los Angeles Names Director
Dafina, the Shabbat Dish That Brings Us Home
Education for Jewish Endurance
Taking the Gloves Off: New Initiative Says ‘Enough’ to the Boycott of Israeli Academics
A Book That Writes Itself: Dalia Rotter Youngerwood’s Jewish Journal
A Look Back at Israel’s Concert History — and When the Big Acts Might Return
Why Diaspora Jews Should Care About a New Haredi Political Voice
My Teacher Union Ejected Me from a Meeting for Being a Zionist
Beth Jacob Holds Farewell Shabbat for Longtime Rabbi Kalman Topp
The Torah on One Foot: Disability Inclusion as the Core of Jewish Life
One Rabbi’s Crusade Against Qatar’s Global Influence
Rosner’s Domain | No Suspension of Suspicion
The Power of a Quilt
Jewish Democrats Take Note: It’s OK to Be Self-Protective
Defend America — Save the Democratic Party, Defeat Abdul El-Sayed
The Iranian Intellectual Who Admired Israel
More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.
