takahmamash

ezlev, why don’t you ask your Rav?

There are plenty of Jews who still have the Brooklyn accent. Go and hang out in the Rova or Ben Yehuda during the chagim and/or summer and listen to the tourists.

The issue of Chametz is one area in particular where many feel the need to be stringent

That’s fine, but kitniyot is not chametz, and in many cases, does not resemble chometz, and in many cases can’t be ground up and made into bread. Tell me how green beans and peas can be ground up and used.

And as long as we’re trying to come up with explinations, someone tell me why peanut oil was fine when I was a youngster, but can’t be used now? (We ate peanuts on Pesach growing up; I eat them now on Pesach as well. If they weren’t kitniyot then, they didn’t suddenly and magically change status.)

twisted:

That may be true, but in the end, we use it for the seder, and since we like the taste, we use it through the rest of the week as well (but not exclusively).

I love saying “seder” instead of “sedarim.” 🙂

I can only go by what the packaging says, and it definitely has a different taste than the regular matzah – so I’m assuming it’s really 100% whole wheat.

Make aliyah. The hand shmura is cheaper here.

When my parents sat shiva, I never let any stranger leave a tzedakah plate.

Neither did we when sitting shiva for our parents. We had one pushke for the shule and one for a community tzedaka to which my parents had contributed, and that was it.

If not, I think this would be a great new market for Band leaders. They could record CDs for people who don’t want to pay for a whole band.

Why would they make a CD that would cause them to get less bookings and lose money?

I can’t even remember the last time I ate only one slice of pizza.

Is there a difference between what post-sem girls wear to weddings, as opposed to pre-sem girls? What about girls who went straight to college and never went to sem? What about girls who married straight out of high school – do they go with the post-sem look as well, even though they’re not post-sem?

I attended public school, so it may be different, but I actually did build a nice relationship with some of my teachers simply by hanging out in their classrooms after school was done for the day. I did small things for them, and in the time I was there we were able to talk. They didn’t seem to mind. I kept in touch with some of them for many years after I graduated high school. (One of the things we talked about? I wore a kipa to school in my junior and senior years, and the non-Jewish teachers were absolutely fascinated by it.)

It was actually the Knave of Hearts.

I heard even worse. Someone I know of has the same name as his living grandfather.

So what? Sfardim have the minhag to name after the living.

To SL:

No problem!

Kissing a child in shul during davening is not allowed.

Back in the days when my oldest child was quite young, I had her with me in shule on a Friday night. Someone came over and told me that kissing a child wasn’t allowed, which was fine – I didn’t know that, and I learned something. It also allowed me to tell the person, a notorious talker during davening, that talking during davening was also not allowed. Unfortunately, his reaction was quite unlike mine – he got very angry, mumbled something under his breath, and walked away.

Have enough people written yet that we don’t go by perakim? Yes? Good, then I won’t have to write it too.

I have been. All visits are coordinated with the Army, so as long as they say it’s OK you should go. (And yes, there are times when the Army has cancelled the visits because something dangerous came up.) You’ll only be at the kever for about 45 minutes, as the army coordinates hundreds of buses coming and going all night long.

Both of my parents died recently; my father at the end of 2012 and my mother in the fall last year. My father, among other things, had congestive heart failure. My mother had pancreatic cancer. Each of them had a signed DNR (Do Not Resuscitate order), which they had prepared many years before they each became ill. My father was about to enter a hospice service, but he died before my sister could get him enrolled. My mother was on a hospice service for the two weeks before she died.

My mother had food available to her until the time she became comatose, but it didn’t matter – she wasn’t eating anyway. She drank until the time she became comatose. After she was on hospice, she had no further fluid intake by mouth (she was in a coma) or by IV. Both the doctor and her hospice nurse explained to us that her body was shutting down; any attempt to give her fluids of any sort would simply end up drowning her internally.

She wasn’t dehydrating, she was dying of cancer. She went painlessly, B”H, with her children with her. Both the nursing home staff and the hospice personnel treated her with great dignity and respect during her last weeks.

Years ago, when the whole AIDS thing was just starting, my mom got a call from some telemarketer. He made the mistake of asking her, “How are you doing today?” She answered back, “Not so good – I just found out I have AIDS.” The guy hung up on her and never called back.

I think we’ve already had a thread on this topic. Do some research and look up the old one.

This site includes the coffee room, which necessitates some humor, and, British humor is inscrutable to Yankees, expats and all.

What are you talking about? Monty Python rocks!

Because it’s a mitzvah to live in E”Y. There’s no mitzvah to live in the U.K.

What are exceptances?

Exceptions?

Acceptances?

001 area code number

I recently got a Golan plan and love it – I don’t need to be home to speak to friends in America.

I like ketchup; I detest mustard and mayonnaise.

I once ordered a corned beef sandwich and asked for ketchup instead of mustard. The lady looked and me funny and asked, “Are you sure you’re Jewish?”