Neshama Carlebach knows what its like to take heroes off their pedestals. “I know now the value of pain and being able to look inside,” she said. “What began as the greatest moment of loss in my life, I now see as a rising, and in that rising I can find my real voice.” As…
Our nation’s reckoning with sexual assault has unfolded with powerful parallels in our Torah’s narrative of our liberation from Egypt. As more and more women have come forward to describe harrowing experiences of sexual assault, I am reminded of our enslaved ancestors who dared to mark their doorposts with blood, identifying themselves as one of…
This article originally appeared in the Yiddish Forverts. As the list of accusations of sexual harassment against well-known figures continues to grow, it isn’t surprising that charges against spiritual leader and composer-singer Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach have resurfaced, leading some of his accusers to call for a ban of his melodies, many of which have become…
(JTA) (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — Rabbi Menachem Creditor met Neshama Carlebach 10 years ago when the popular Jewish singer headlined a concert at Creditor’s shul, Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, California. They struck up a friendship, which eventually turned into love and, now, an engagement. The couple will wed next summer…
One is a superstar professional football player in a nation that considers the gridiron to be holy ground. The other is an Arab Israeli with a permanent seat on his nation’s highest and most revered court of law. Despite their minority status, the athlete born of a single white mother and an African American father…
Our high school, the Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto was, as its name indicated, a community school. Kids entered ninth grade from the spectrum of Jewish day schools — Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Sephardic. But it was also a community school in a different way; we were a small group (graduating class of 110), and…
(JTA) — Over the past two weeks I’ve been both heartened and horrified by the spectrum of response to what, I felt, was a spontaneous and sincere statement of unity and joy — my proclamation of “aliyah” to Reform Judaism, made at the biennial conference of the Union for Reform Judaism. I’m honored that the…
(JTA) — I grew up Jewish. Simply Jewish. My late father, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, raised us in an observant Orthodox household. Our lives were filled with beautiful ritual and we celebrated the wonder of a familial spiritual connection. That said, we also danced along the fine line of progressive Judaism. My father’s Torah was an…
100% of profits support our journalism
