Author: Charlotte Friedland

A Flash of Chesed Lighting the Night

The headlines about the Swissair tragedy have faded and other newspaper stories vie for our attention.  Yet it is precisely at this point, as the horror of 229 people meeting a gruesome death slowly recedes from memory, that a new story emerges.  It is one of genuine selflessness and outright valor, in a world where […]

A Bridge of Paper

As much as we’d like to think of it as a sober, careful decision, we have yet to understand the astounding forces that gathered, propelling us to our homeland.  

The Big Pang Theory

In our never-ending quest to put a yarmulke on Darwin, it is time to get down to The Truth about what, or some say Who, runs the world.

Absolute Borders

Purim, 2006 – Joyous celebration  in the sovereign State of Israel greeted the final step of the “At Peace” Process — the signing of the Why Not? Accords at an undisclosed location.   According to the agreement, the new Israeli borders are “absolute,” never to be  violated by the Palestinian state surrounding it, honest. On the […]

The Three Little Pigs: A Quintessential Jewish Allegory in Deceptive Disguise?

In a previous issue of Jewish Faction, Professor Rumplestiltskin Schwartz, dean of the Institute To Make Everything Jewish, argued (brilliantly) that the true author of Mother Goose rhymes was none other than Rebbetzin Kraindel Zisse Lefkowitcz, the original Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe.  In this second contribution to our illustrious journal, the professor […]

Mixed Breed

I was once told a charming story about a Chassidic rebbe, whose name I’ve conveniently forgotten, who prepared rigorously for every mitzvah. On erev Sukkos he sat up all night, staring at his esrog and lulav in the glass-enclosed case in his dining room, joyously waiting for the exact moment he could make the berachah. […]

A Quaint Prayer Makes a Comeback

As I looked out the window of the El Al jet, the plane was lifting off the runway. The fellow beside me was already snoring. A tall, denim-clad woman sprawled on the seat across the aisle watched with interest as I whipped out my siddur. When I began whispering Tefillat Haderech, she arched her eyebrows […]

Confessions of a BT Wannabe

It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but I’m not a ba’alas teshuvah (BT). As I was born to observant Jewish parents, the outreach networks dismiss me as an “FFB”—a “frum from birth” specimen, not worthy of attention. The term itself suggests staleness. After all, an FFB arrives in a world where traditions and education are […]