Plumbers fixing a water leak in central Portugal discovered what appears to be a cluster of 600-year-old Jewish ritual baths. The discovery was made earlier this year in the city of Coimbra as the plumbers were replacing the piping of an old building in what used to be the Jewish part of the Old City,…
A mikvah dating from the 18th century was discovered in Venezuela. The Jewish ritual bath was discovered in the state of Falcon during the remodeling of the Art Museum Alberto Henriquez in the central town of Coro, according to the Prensa Latina news agency. Its discovery was reported late last week. According to Prensa Latina,…
Somehow, I did not put two and two together. I read Hadassa Margolese’s post (in Hebrew) on the Maariv website back in May about her negative — even traumatizing — experience at her local mikveh (ritual bath) in Beit Shemesh, Israel. Then, recently, I read several Facebook posts she wrote about her family’s move to…
A number of years ago a friend asked me to co-write a ritual to mark his gender-transition to manhood. I say “friend,” but it would be more accurate to call him “queer family.” I am also a transgender Jew, and he is as close to me as my brothers are. Even so, I was hesitant….
Ellie Goldenberg and Emily Blum are getting ready to immerse for the first time in the mikveh, or Jewish ritual bath. One might assume that Ellie and Emily are soon-to-be brides; in traditional communities, women immerse in the mikveh for the first time before they are wed. But they’re not — Ellie is an 11-year-old…
I went to the mikveh recently, and it was the first time that I didn’t cry. For married women, going to the mikveh comes at the end of the niddah, or the length of the menstrual cycle, plus seven days. It concludes niddah; after a woman dunks in the mikveh she can touch her husband…
I feel cheated. I was in the ninth grade when I first learned that when I was to get married, I would only be able to touch my husband for about half of each month. I had known about sex for about eight years at that point, and no one had cared to mention to…
Going to mikvah, particularly if you’re not Orthodox, can be complicated. But nowhere is it more complicated than in Israel, where women are required to establish that they are married or will soon be, and have taken a rabbinically-sanctioned pre-marital education course. If you want to immerse in a mikvah for any reason other than…
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