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Lacking Knowledge
I have a confession to make: I know very little about the African-American experience. There. I’ve said it. The Great Migration Just over fourteen percent of the United States population...
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Increasing Purim’s Joy
Purim is coming and the inhabitants of my house are giddy with anticipation. It has long been a favorite holiday in our family. We talk about costumes for weeks ahead of time. We take annual Purim...
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International Women’s Day: Torah from the Margins
Clara Zetkin (l), Rosa Luxemburg (r) Torah teaches that ancient Israelite women refused to donate their jewelry to build the Golden Calf. Instead they donated their mirrors to build the mishkan...
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The Power of Community
Earlier this week, Rabbi Shira Stutman wrote a short essay in Slate about her realization that when she was in middle school, she had been a “mean girl.” After seeing it posted several times in my...
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When It Is Not Obvious
A couple weeks ago news stations around the country featured the story of an 87-year old woman, a resident of a nursing home in Bakersfield, California, who was denied CPR by a nurse even while the...
View ArticleSpicing Up Your Seder
As a rabbi who also happens to be a mother of small kids, I am often asked for creative ideas to enliven a seder. I have decided to dedicate this post to sharing some of these ideas. Feel free to pass...
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On Pesach, you are not alone.
Passover has always been my favorite holiday. I love the foods, seeing my family and my friends who are normally far away, and I love the incredible power of the holiday itself - a message that...
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A Contemporary Story Of Redemption
“My father was a wandering Aramean.” With this quote, from Deuteronomy 26:5, we begin not only the Maggid (story-telling) portion of our Passover seders but also the very ontology of Judaism as an...
View ArticleUnleavened Equality
I will never forget the moment when my daughter came out. She was 5 years old. We were eating dinner as a family. My daughter put down her fork, placed her hand on the table, looked at my husband and...
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A Modest Case For Civil Marriage Equality
Political discourse finds expression everywhere it can. People discuss their convictions over dinner, at water coolers in the office, in the gym and nowadays through their Facebook profile picture....
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Accidentally 1%
“There will be no poor among you…” – Deut. 15:4 Last night I was stranded in a Mercedes E Class in the parking lot of my favorite vegan restaurant. It was the most expensive car in the lot by tens of...
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Inclusion is a Jewish Imperative
Why do you try to be so inclusive? It’s OBVIOUS that you are liberal because you care about these marginalized groups! Why do you have to be politically correct all the time? These questions and more...
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Should Jews Care About Government Monitoring Our Phone Calls?
The NSA knows who you called last Tuesday at 8:00pm—should you care? From an American civil liberties perspective, we have seen and heard a cacophony of reaction ever since news broke last Thursday,...
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Fitting in
I recently read an essay published earlier this year on xoJane that a woman wrote as a paean to her (still living) mother. The essay outlined how her mother saved women from abusive partners, helping...
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Zimmerman Verdict: Reflections on Justice and Dialogue
George Zimmerman has been found “not guilty” in the murder of Trayvon Martin. The trial was high-profile and symbolic, and thus the verdict was quite upsetting to anti-racist activists. Jewish...
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Why I hope a Right-Winger Becomes the Next Chief Rabbi of Israel
Photo of current Israeli Chief Rabbis by Olivier Fitoussi There is a big election coming up on Wednesday, one many American Jews might not be aware of. In response to January’s parliamentary elections,...
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When Goodness Transcends Boundaries
The 70th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising has created renewed interest in the actions of Polish gentiles who assisted Poland’s Jews during the Nazi occupation. Some rescuers hid individual...
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World Cat Day: A Jewish Perspective
Traditional Jewish thought sees the whole world as a laboratory for learning. On the one hand, everything has value in and of itself. On the other hand, everything points beyond itself to teach about...
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So Now What?
As a synagogue rabbi, I feel as if we have been running a religious marathon for the past month. since. After the majesty, power, and spiritual rigor of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, building a...
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A Halloween With Jewish Values?
Lately it seems like Halloween has becomes a Rorschach test for how Jews feel about assimilation. As expressed in this eloquent blog post, some Jews applaud participating in Halloween because, since...
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