Chaviva and Skylar gone...any recs for Jewish blogs?

[Soldier of the One]

If you're into challah, thechallahblog.com (I think) is pretty cool.

I'll be curious to see where Chaviva takes her blog. I wish her all the best - the Jewish journey is often a hard one, especially for converts.

As for Skylar: I am sure she'll mellow out more once she's married, has a couple of kids and is firmly settled in a community. For now, she absolutely has to dot her i's and cross her t's.

[Soldier of the One]

And of course, for your progressive/feminist Jewish fix: jewschool.com!

[Sarah]

Thanks everyone! I'm a big FJ fan--I usually read on the ipad with one hand while I nurse the baby, so I don't comment much! It's so nice to "meet" so many of you!

And just a quick comment on the name--I was also worried that Eliana was getting too popular, but in the end it just fit her. Now I can't imagine her being called anything else!

[tumblingdown]

I've been lurking on FJ ever since my blog was [link=http://boardreader.com/thread/How_to_be_modest_feminine_AND_stylish_s21eX24qgrhutecbkm.html]snarked on[/link] over a year ago ("I get she was trying to modest. But she just looks poor and like she's trying too hard.." Slight ouch, but no hard feelings. It was a bad outfit, and I don't begrudge others the pleasure of a good laugh). If you're interested, I'm a Modern Orthodox Jew, and you can find my blog at http://alltumbledown.blogspot.com. I generally post about my daily outfits, with some general musings about religious practice, modesty and my life as a grad student.

[Soldier of the One]

Cool blog, tumblingdown - welcome to FJ! :)

[tumblingdown]

Thanks, Soldier!

[saraelise]

I've been lurking on FJ ever since my blog was [link=http://boardreader.com/thread/How_to_be_modest_feminine_AND_stylish_s21eX24qgrhutecbkm.html]snarked on[/link] over a year ago ("I get she was trying to modest. But she just looks poor and like she's trying too hard.." Slight ouch, but no hard feelings. It was a bad outfit, and I don't begrudge others the pleasure of a good laugh). If you're interested, I'm a Modern Orthodox Jew, and you can find my blog at http://alltumbledown.blogspot.com. I generally post about my daily outfits, with some general musings about religious practice, modesty and my life as a grad student.

I've actually been reading your blog for a while! I love your outfits :)

[clibbyjo]

I've actually been reading your blog for a while! I love your outfits :)

LOL, You have been on my blogroll for at least a year or 2 and you have cute outfits! I think I have even commented on your blog. I LOVED when you got the pixie,so cute. I have been wondering how its going with you since you are going to school and staying at your moms. I know you are busy with school and trying to see your dh when not at school.(P.s. why no pics of dh? I assume he doesn't want to be part of a fashion blog? :dance: ) Also wondered if you had backlash when you uncovered your hair.(This is the kind of thing we live for over here! :shifty: )

[2xx1xy1JD]

tumblingdown - I like your blog! My style's a bit similar, but without any yellow.

[tumblingdown]

Sarelise and Clibbyjo, thanks for following! It is so nice to be able to "meet" readers and know a bit more about them.

2xx1xy1JD: Yknow, I never realized how much I loved yellow until I started blogging. Amazing how taking photos of outfits, which seems so unenlightening, can clue you in to little aspects of yourself.

Clibby: School has been, in a word, intense. Which is why I've cut way down on blogging. The commuting, constantly being with other people when back in NY, and overall not living with my husband for most of the week is clearly not ideal, but I do think, if anything, it has strengthened our relationship and made us both realize that at least one thing in our lives is stable, constant, and working really well.

When I started the blog, my husband was a second-year med student, and was terrified that some day he'd be discovered by some residency's program director on a fashion blog and immediately rejected. We're now thankfully at the end of the process, but the blog is definitely my little corner of the internet, not his. He is totally supportive (takes most of the pictures, reminds me to blog when he thinks my outfit is cute), but simply not interested in sharing himself on the blog, which is just fine in my book.

As to your last question: when I stopped covering my hair, I did get a few rude comments, but most of the people who know me well knew the intense struggle I'd been having with covering for the few years prior. When I discuss it, I generally emphasize the it-gave-me-daily-migraines bit, rather than the I-hated-my-appearance-for-three-years one, as the first is seen as an acceptable reason within the community, and the second, not (personally, I think that hating one's appearance is a big problem, one that cannot be simply overlooked). In the MOdox community, plenty of women don't cover their hair, so I haven't been kicked out of the community or been labeled OTD ("off the derech"), but I do know that it is a standard for frumkeit (observance level) to many, and that in their eyes, I am not fully observant.

[Soldier of the One]

It's a shame, tumblingdown, that headcovering in Orthodoxy has become so polarized, considering that in years gone by, even the wives of famous rabbanim didn't cover. It's become the new yardstick to measure frumkeit and I don't think it is accurate or fair. Tzn'iut (modesty) is so much more of a meta-concept than merely what inches of skin (or hair) are covered. Good luck in your journey!

[pomology]

I've been lurking on FJ ever since my blog was [link=http://boardreader.com/thread/How_to_be_modest_feminine_AND_stylish_s21eX24qgrhutecbkm.html]snarked on[/link] over a year ago ("I get she was trying to modest. But she just looks poor and like she's trying too hard.." Slight ouch, but no hard feelings. It was a bad outfit, and I don't begrudge others the pleasure of a good laugh). If you're interested, I'm a Modern Orthodox Jew, and you can find my blog at http://alltumbledown.blogspot.com. I generally post about my daily outfits, with some general musings about religious practice, modesty and my life as a grad student.

I like your blog, although I am neither interested in fashion nor Orthodox. But I'm also a Jewish history nerd, so I enjoy stopping by your blog every once and awhile.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I've also struggled with hair covering and skirts only being seen as defining issues in Orthodox modesty, since I don't personally see a woman who uncovered hair and baggy pants as immodest.

I tried the wig thing. True be told, it actually didn't look bad (my natural hair is super-thin to the point of looking like a receding hairline), and I got compliments - but the clips drove me bonkers and I couldn't stand it in the summer.

It may not be totally Orthodox mainstream today, but the reasoning behind the left-wing Modern Orthodox standards makes sense to me, and also reflects more closely what I saw with my grandmother and other Modern Orthodox women that I knew growing up.

[Magnetophone]

As someone who has followed Chaviva's exploits since she blogged from Chicago, I have another perspective. I was going through a Conservative conversion in 2007 and found Chaviva's blog through Jewsbychoice. Blog after blog was about how she felt on the "outside" in the Chicago Jewish world and was displeased with her Reform temple. I posted on her blog that try the Conservative shul which had an active young people's group, very progressive Torah study groups, and one of the most lauded conversion programs in the city. From what I read on her blog, she went once to shul, complained that people were staring at her, that there was no young people's group, blah blah blah. Then she proceeded to bash the shul. I suggested later that she might try the Modern Orthodox shul down the street. I think she was happy there, but she became super dogmatic and started posting that if you weren't converted Orthodox, you weren't halachically Jewish (and therefore, she wasn't). It became kind of amusing. She popped up on yelp, caused trouble there, posted amusing incidents that Dunkin Donuts gave her a sausage biscuit, which caused her to miss her train stop and end up in a bad neighborhood. Friends of mine who followed the blog found it funny that she kept posting all day how she was going to bring that sausage biscuit back to Dunkin Donuts hours later and tell them how they had destroyed her day. Anyway, she was gone from Chicago soon after, on to her exploits in Connecticut.

In Connecticut, it was one thing after another--the university wasn't kosher enough, her Bennington Hebrew immersion was filled with born Jews who weren't Jewish enough. Then the dating, and the marriage, Teaneck. I stopped following. I was comfortable enough in my own Judaism that she was more of an oddity to observe and feel sorry for. My overall point, though, is that Chaviva/Amanda never stopped once in pronouncing judgment on non-Orthodox converts once she became one. She acted like she was the authority on halakhah--everything she says she despises in Skylar. She put her life out on the blog, declared herself some kind of blog celebrity, then anytime she felt attacked, played the victim. I think the saddest thing is that one time I saw her on a bus, recognized her from the Internet--this larger than life online entity--just a small, sad person looking down at her lap. It was heartbreaking.

I do wish her the best, even if I don't know her, but she needs to stop playing the victim, stop thinking she's an Internet celebrity, and begin living the life she wants and stop making excuses for it.

[RR88]

I kinda want to re-open my blog, but can't do so for security reasons. A lot of Jewish bloggers attract negative attention and scrutiny.