Laynie Soloman is a faculty member and Director of National Learning at SVARA: A Traditionally Radical Yeshiva. Chanukah is filled with miracles—long-lasting surprise pockets of oil, an unexpected military victory, the legacy of zealous resistance in the face of hegemonic…
by Rabbi Rami Shapiro On the Shabbat of Sukkot, this year October 19, we read the book of Kohelet, Ecclesiastes. But why read a book that famously disclaims the “vanity” of life on the holiday called “time of our rejoicing?”…
by Rabbi Benay Lappe in chevruta with Laynie Soloman Photo credit: Jess Benjamin, 2019 The Jewish new year season tends to have one “star of the show”—teshuva, the practice of recognizing whom we’ve harmed and repairing that harm, addressing where…
by Noah Strauss Detractors of Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley, aka, ‘The Squad‘, have relentlessly attacked them over the past year, targeting them with disproportionate amounts of vitriol. In singling out these four strong…
It is hard to imagine the reader competent to review Noam Sienna’s new book, A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts From The First Century to 1969, so I will not try. As the title suggests, the sources…
I think the idea that we have to either accept or reject traditions, texts, works of art because they are tainted by cultural forces or even individuals who offend us is premised on a false dichotomy. I’ll go further. I…
If you were paying attention to this week’s Torah reading of Mattot-Massei, you were presumably horrified by the description of the genocide and sex slavery the Israelites inflicted on the Midianites at the command of God. The question of the…
At the end of July, USA Today published a piece on Jewish reactions to the co-optation of Old Testament language to justify anti-abortion legislation. Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg is quoted in the article, and the work of the National Council of…
Two stories. Both of them in the Babylonian Talmud. The first is about R. Shimon ben Yohai, and the second about R. Aqiva. Both stories go against the grain of what popular opinion is about these two. R. Shimon ben…
by Shaul Magid Shaul Magid is the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein Professor of Jewish Studies at Indiana University, Kogod Senior Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, and rabbi of the Fire Island Synagogue in Seaview,…