Ableism is a spiritual wound. Like white supremacy or misogyny, it exists in both explicit and implicit forms, and on the micro and macro level. A spiritual wound requires spiritual care, and we must not reopen the wound through spiritual community. Our fates as Jewish and disabled people are inextricably linked. My...
Welcome to the no prerequisites, no judgement, no commitment Talmud study podcast. Grab your favorite beverage, or step into the great outdoors, and dive into the sea of Talmud with me. (Talmud is the cornerstone text of the Jewish tradition which, to the uninitiated reads like a rabbi, a law professor, a...
I’m a Korean American immigrant adult convert to Judaism who has never been to Israel. And, truth be told, I have never paid much attention to the World Zionist Congress elections. That is until now. That’s largely because of the Hatikvah slate, which is the first slate to declare that at least...
My personal definition of who is a Jew has nothing to do with observance, ideology, or strict rules about ancestry. For me, anyone who reacts to an embarrassing moment involving a public figure by saying “I hope that person isn’t Jewish” or “I wish that person wasn’t Jewish” is part of the...
The last few weeks have brought a renewed focus on the question that many American Jews have struggled with for decades: what does it mean to be an “ally” of Israel? How do we best support Israel, Israelis, and the Jewish ideals that we believe to be at the core of why...
There’s a general fear among rabbis about speaking honestly about their complicated relationships with the State of Israel — they worry that doing so might alienate members of their communities and risk their own professional futures. For rabbinical students, the fear is even greater — will anyone hire me if I criticize...
(Crossposted to Mah Rabu.) Do we really have to do this again? I guess we do, don’t we. We just had September Madness a few months ago, and April Madness before that, but now Israel is (for the first time ever) approaching its third election in less than a year. So that...
So … I made a podcast. As you may know if you’ve been following along, there are two things that I am passionate about. Social justice activism, and studying and teaching Talmud. (Okay there are a bunch of other things but they are not relevant at the moment.) This past December a...
There has been a lot of handwringing in the Jewish community about the growing number of unaffiliated Jewish families and young people who are not identifying with Judaism or Israel. One great antidote are the progressive Zionist Youth movements: Hashomer Hatzair and Habonim Dror. These organizations nurture a strong sense of community in...
In his recent book Paradigm Lost, Ian Lustick claims that the Two State Solution (TSS) paradigm is lost and we are now in a One State Reality (OSR). His argument is interesting and important, though he seems a bit polyannish about what might commence with the OSR in terms of Palestinian-Jewish comity...