More in ‘health’

When he entered the New York dating scene after college, Yishai Lemberger set a basic criterion for what he was looking for in a match. “I would only date women who loved herring,” says the 36-year-old health-care consultant, who like many Jews of his generation grew up eating the fish on Saturday mornings at shul.
Given ...

Know you don’t want to get swine flu but occasionally forgetful of how best to prevent it? Who better to turn to for advice, then, than an bald, dorky, upper-middle-aged Jewish doctor who awkwardly raps about safety tips? Ladies and gentlemen, we present, courtesy of YouTube, Dr. Mache Seibel’s hip-hop “Five Tips to Avoid H1N1 ...

Four years ago, a massive stroke sent Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s prime minister and one of the nation’s most decorated warriors, into a coma. The rapid pace of Israeli politics being what it is, Sharon quickly faded from the public’s consciousness; but now, with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more mired than ever, there are those who ...

• Jonathan Safran Foer’s brother Josh on building a sukkah together: “We’re supposed to be the People of the Book, but we’re actually the people of the carpenter’s square. From Noah to Jesus to Norm Abram, it’s a very proud tradition, you know.” The novelist’s reply: “Always hammering or getting screwed….” [Forward]
• Ultra-orthodox Jews in ...

A school in the West Bank city of Nablus is being closed for a week after some students tested positive for swine flu, the AP reports. This isn’t the first time the H1N1 virus has hit the territory—as we noted in July, cases were diagnosed this summer in the West Bank though not in Gaza, ...

As Jennifer Traig prepared for her bat mitzvah, she also began to worry about keeping kosher. This California girl, the product of a mixed marriage, wasn’t just finding religion: She was developing scrupulosity, a version of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in which individuals fixate on moral questions and religious practice. Perplexed, Traig became her own guide, ...