“Make for yourself a teacher and acquire for yourself a friend, and judge everyone favorably.” — Ethics of the Fathers, 1:6 When Rabbi Joshua ben Perachiah, the head of the Sanhedrin (the Assembly of 71, the equivalent of the Supreme Court) taught those words in the second half the the

I remember my first Pride parade. It was in Jerusalem, about a year after I first came out to my roommate, and a half-year since discovering the community at The Edge (ha-Katzeh) on Tuesday nights. I was still closeted to most of the people in my life, but I was

Dear Chocolate, You and me are pretty good together. You complement parts of me I didn’t even know were lacking. I know what people’s initial reaction to seeing us together is. “That’s so unnatural and wrong,” they scream, “if god wanted things to mix, he would’ve

“Who sold their soul to the devil to get Ghost: The Musical made?” A scathing review of a musical that should have never been produced. “The Official Ezra Butler Guide to Shopping” When you need a book about Jesus from Barnes & Noble and buy a pair of pants from

To the onlooker, the interview should be indecipherable from a first date. It should be casual, yet probing. The subject should be made comfortable and at ease. The flow of questions should be conversational, revealing knowledge about the subject, but not putting words in the subject’s mouth. The interviewer

I am not a model, an actor, a singer or a well-known dilettante photographed incessantly by the paparazzi after becoming famous for my reckless and overly hedonistic lifestyle. I’m so unknown that I heard murmurs by photographers on a red carpet I recently attended, asking each other if Pitbull

Dear “So Delicious”, I happened across your “Mint Chip” Coconut Milk non-dairy frozen dessert while perusing the over-the-counter drug aisle for Zyrtec at Gelson’s in West Hollywood. The only reason I really use Zyrtec so much is because I walk my friend Sheena’s two dogs every day, one

When the television show “Smash” needed to cast an innovative songwriter and producer who could re-envision the character of Marilyn Monroe with a harder edge, they called Ryan Tedder, lead singer and frontman for OneRepublic to play himself. The long list of cross-genre artists that Tedder has either wrote songs

I’ve been having very morbid thoughts recently, like who would play me in a biopic of my life. I would really want James Earl Jones, because that voice has a gravitas I feel goes really well with my personality. I’ve seen my community change through the years. If

Dear ________________, I am writing to you because I consider you as a fairly good grocery shopper. I am worried about my subconscious. When I arrived home, I noticed a slew of healthy products, like kale, beets, avocados, cucumbers, tomatoes and almond milk. However, I also found ice cream and a