Jessica Miller
Jessica Miller graduated from Barnard College in 2009 with a BA in religion, and is psyched to finally have an answer to the question, “so what does one do with a religion major?” Her writing has appeared on Jewcy, Mashable, and the Huffington Post. In her spare time she can be found sailing, playing music, and blogging about boomerangs.
Recent Posts by Jessica
Shabbat and the Gospel Choir
There is exactly one day of the year when I make sure I get my ass to temple, and it’s not the day you’re thinking. Yom Kippur is too obvious and Rosh Hashanah is too mundane. But every year I go for the service commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr., the night where my synagogue acknowledges…
What’s Your Calling?
If someone were to ask you what your calling was, what would you say? The facial expressions in the first ten seconds of this say it all: What’s Your Calling? is an online documentary project that exposes people and their passions, from the religious to the secular, and the profound to the mundane. It was…
E-Cards for the Left Behind
So suppose one day you wake up and all your Christian friends have mysteriously gone missing. It’s creepy, and everyone around you is trying to figure out what the heck is going on. Luckily, a few days later you check your email to find you have received the following letter: Dear Friend; This message has…
A Hanukkah Miracle
Nes Katan Hayah Po. A small miracle happened here. Here, of all places, on the Metro Transit Authority’s turf. That’s what I thought, at least, when I stepped off the Q train and onto the platform of the 30th Avenue stop. I had to laugh. I should explain why. The ancient history: The Judeans found…
My Mecca Is Taller than Yours
Check out these crazy photos of the Mecca Clock Royal Tower now under construction. Upon completion, this tower will be the second tallest building in the world, at around 1,900 feet high. The building will be host to a lunar observatory, an Islamic heritage museum, a mechanism for the call to prayer, a gigantic clock…
Awesome and Full of Dread
Fall is past its peak in my neighborhood. The legacy fall is leaving behind: literally, leaves. Heaps and piles of leaves. Leaf towers so high you could hide a small marching band inside them. The biggest leaf pile of all currently rests across the street from my house. It was cleverly and carefully built around…
God, Live From The Beacon
My dad came home the other night to find my mom and me watching the live broadcast of the Elton John/Leon Russell concert from New York City’s Beacon Theater. His first words: “What is God doing on our television?” He wasn’t asking in the way Elvis fans say The King is God. He was asking…
Opportunity to Stalk Bob Dylan’s Bar Mitzvah
Calling all Bob Dylan fans: a once in a lifetime opportunity just surfaced on Craigslist! That’s right! For a limited time only, you can actually purchase a rare, reliquary piece of Dylan’s history: the synagogue building where Robert Zimmerman was first called to the Torah as a man. [Insert “Blowin’ in the Wind” parody here….
Comedy for Religious Freedom
Those of you in New York this week might want to check out the “Stand Up For Religious Freedom” event this Monday night at Comix. Scheduled to appear are Aasif Mandvi, Wyatt Cenac, John Oliver, Todd Barry, and more. If the “Team Mohammed vs. Team Jesus” Daily Show sketches can serve as a preview, count…
Let There Be Pixels…
In the beginning, there was 8-bit animation. Just in time for B’resheet, find out what God used to do with His infinite time:
Meaning of Life 101, with a Minor in Cheese
Four years ago, when I told my parents that I was planning on majoring in religion, I didn’t know that I was just being trendy. A friend just sent me this article from last week’s Newsweek Education section about how majoring in religion has become an increasingly popular choice among American college students. According to…
Killing the Crab-Buddha on MasterChef
To some extent, the goal of all reality TV competitions is to make their contestants uncomfortable. The stress is sometimes physical (how many cockroaches can you eat?) and sometimes mental (there’s a camera in every room of your house!). But what happens when the conflict is spiritual? Last week on MasterChef, host Gordon Ramsay announced…
“Clerical Impropriety” Is So Hot Right Now
Those of you who thought Buddhism was still the proverbial last righteous man in Sodom might be disappointed to read August 20th’s New York Times. In his article “Sex Scandal Has U.S. Buddhists Looking Within,” Mark Oppenheimer likens a recent sex scandal in a New York-based Japanese Buddhist society to the slew of sexual improprieties…