Essays on My Mind

I never know what to say in a shiva house. I don’t feel like I have the right to say something, especially when someone else may have known the person better. So I show up and listen. I may share an anecdote I remember about the person but I

A decade ago, I wrote the following piece for Jewneric, a blog that no longer exists. In the intervening years, it has remained mostly true, with a few glaring exceptions. There have been a few romantic partners who have rejected me due to my lack of fluency, there have been

A year ago, I wrote an update recounting my first year back in New York. It had been a difficult year to give any particulars about, because quite honestly, not much of anything felt like an accomplishment. It was a very personal year. It was a year of reconnecting with

Exactly a year ago today, I landed in New York. It was supposed to be a year yesterday, but I had actually missed my flight due to awful planning on my part and normally horrendous Los Angeles traffic. I ended up taking the red-eye and landing early on a Friday

“He who saves one life saves the entire world.” – Sanhedrin 4:5, as quoted at the very end of the credits of QUEEN MIMI Before I left Los Angeles, I got into a fight during brunch in a vegan restaurant. It may have been more of a differing of opinions,

“Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” my interlocutor innocuously asked over his regular milk latte at FIKA on West 58th street. I stammered with a reply, not because of my stutter, but due to having no good response. It took me a few pots of tea and an

“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