IN THE ORCHARD By Julia Knobloch I say my blessings in the orchard, I have turned over the soil. I give with dubious hands; the intention does not count. We remain a forbidden junction, peaches and almonds. I have only been here four years and you since Abraham. You want a...
After the Exodus, Torah was revealed at Sinai, and our ancestors had to figure out how their lives would be different after their liberation from Mitzrayim. The Vision for Black Lives policy platform is similarly a revelation, a vision of how we can be different with each other as we continue marching...
Every day, millions of Jews pray multiple times per day, in the set of blessings known as the Amidah, for the return to, and rebuilding of, Jerusalem and reestablishing there the Glory of King David. It is time to rethink that blessing. In a world in which Jerusalem has not only been...
Let’s talk about Judaism and privacy. Over the past several of decades, it’s been very common for technological advances to be matched by corresponding halakhic conversations; there are attempts to find the “Jewish take” on heart transplants, or IVF, or Alexa, or nuclear weapons, or whatever. It’s a good and quite modern...
We are well aware, unfortunately, of the prevalence of denying the Nakba in the Jewish community. This letter is meant to be shared with those who are still in a state of denial regarding the Catastrophe that Palestinians commemorate every year on May 15. By Ilana Sumka, Jordy Silverstein and Sahar Vardi...
A look at the fascinating history of the Reform Movement's relationship with Brit Milah.
I am angry. Many people are angry. Pick your political issue or your social reason to be angry; they seem never-ending. Anger is for sure the wrong way to approach Pesach and the Seder — and not just because it’s hard to get through long meals with a lot of family when...
An interview on the history of the Israeli and American peace movement with renowned activist Naomi Chazan.
This article is part of a collaborative series commissioned by altMuslimah and Jewschool to promote interfaith dialogue and understanding between Muslim and Jewish communities experiencing a rise in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. A brief tour of gaslighting: A thing happens, something is said or done. A person is told it...
Purim is as much a story of collective survival as it is of heroic deeds and last-minute inversions. A tale for our times, it is the story of how vulnerable people find sanctuary, spitting in the eye of their oppressors with the rowdy fact of their rebel endurance.