As the world continues to shake with revelations of sexual abuse in the most high-profile corridors of power and the #MeToo realization that it is nearly impossible to find a woman who has not been affected by sexual harassment, some members of Jewish communal leadership seem to be living in a cave. I knew this…
All cultures have a tendency to make their building blocks into part of a collective myth, oversimplifying them in textbooks and in the collective consciousness of their members. We Jews are hardly immune from this impulse. Indeed, we have performed this very simplification upon a touchstone of our culture: the Hebrew language. Hebrew plays a…
On the first night of Hanukkah, Alabama’s Jews said the Shehecheyanu, the 2,000-year-old prayer of generalized thanksgiving that’s almost always appropriate: “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has granted us life, sustained us and enabled us to reach this moment.” Then they were presented with another miracle, on top of…
A familiar scene played out in front of the Western Wall recently. Leaders of the Reform movement from both the United States and Israel along with members of Women of the Wall attempted to pray and bring Torahs to the Wall. They were forcibly stopped and subjected to violence by guards hired by the Orthodox…
Last week, Joseph Finlay wrote in these pages about new developments in the British Union of Jewish Students, the body that represents Jewish Students in the UK and of which I am the CEO. “[UJS] has always run social and religious programming,” writes Finlay. “But its raison d‘etre has long been defending Israel on campus.”…
“Because of Trump, people are burning Israeli flags and attacking Jews” was the shabby and tone-deaf way one news organization framed a series of violent and incendiary anti-Semitic attacks in Sweden, which occurred over the weekend following Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The incitement began on Friday night, when demonstrators gathered…
I, my friends, and women all over the country have experienced the #MeToo movement as something like a miracle and the women who have risen within it as beings akin to superheroes. As a teenager, I was raped by a boyfriend and then by a best friend. After writing a memoir about some of these…
The subject of women covering their hair is one of fascination in the western world. From burqa bans to sheitel shaming, women who cover are often viewed as victims of patriarchy or religious extremists, getting it from all sides. Enter: Wrapunzel. Wrapunzel is a Facebook group, a business and a community devoted to “celebrat[ing] the…
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