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Looks like Agudath Israel has taken a cue from Israel’s Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger. As the JTA reports, the “leading U.S. umbrella group of fervently Orthodox Jews” (the fervent equivalent… Read more »
Orthodox Slam Safe Sex Campaign
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Amelia Bedelia marries a Babylonian
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As a child, I was a big fan of the Amelia Bedelia books. This popular series featured a dark stocking and apron-clad housekeeper who was famous for her silly but… Read more »
Achievements in Inclusiveness
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In all the post-show analysis of this year’s Oscars, someone has finally noticed that the traditional gender-segregation of awards is not, well, natural. Sarah Churchwell writes in the Guardian, “Although… Read more »
Memory: Banishment or Salvation
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I’ve been getting really into forgotten histories lately. In my academic life, it’s taken the form of some real decided interest in Yiddish literature from America, which I think has… Read more »
Chief Rabbi to Singles: No Pre-Marital Sex, And We Really Mean It This Time!
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The latest “trend” in premarital sex amongst modern Orthodox singles has garnered Chief-Rabbinical condemnation: In an attempt to stem a trend of quasi-condoned premarital sex among young modern Orthodox men… Read more »
Baby Bites
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There’s a lot going on out there in foodie land these days – a giant, mostly symbolic meat recall by Westland/Hallmark Meat Company (ahem, 143 million pounds), the OU declaring… Read more »
Costco Lessons
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My husband and I decided that what was missing in our lives was a Costco membership. And so we went, babes in the woods, with our two babes in tow.… Read more »
Movin' On Up
Mel Weiss
Well, the primaries are a-passin’, and while the outcome’s definitely still up for grabs, it sure feels like a picture is coming into focus, doesn’t it? Some candidates are movin’… Read more »
The Vagina Monologues
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This week marks the tenth anniversary of V-Day, Eve Ensler’s international movement to end violence against girls and women. In its lifetime, V-Day has raised $50 million, and the organization gives away more money than any other group to fight violence against women (still, what they give annually amounts to what’s spent on about ten minutes of the war in Iraq).
The Rock and the God Place
Mel Weiss
So here, essentially, is my conundrum: I started in on Mordechai Kaplan. I got through just enough of Judaism as Civilization to know we’re pretty doomed if we think of… Read more »
Be a part of the story
Are you preparing for your Passover to look different this year?
What Haggadah inserts are you using? Will you have an orange on your Seder plate? An olive? A place setting for hostages?
Tell us in the comments.
Are you preparing for your Passover to look different this year?
What Haggadah inserts are you using? Will you have an orange on your Seder plate? An olive? A place setting for hostages?
Tell us in the comments.
We were having a lot of trouble getting into Passover this year. And then we saw @tirtzahbassel`s new painting, "Red Sea Parting," (23”x22”, gouache on paper, 2024.) Wish Miriam and her drummers could be our doulas, ushering us through this time.
***
@tirtzahbassel writes—Wound/Womb: A friend sent me an illumination from a medieval Haggadah that portrayed the Israelites emerging from the Red Sea through a vulva-shaped opening, and it made me think of the story of Exodus as a story of birthing.
After I gave birth to my son, I remember telling my friend that “giving birth is one thing you can’t think your way through”. Intellectual preparation or rationalization were so vastly inadequate to meet the intensity of this pain. There was no reasoning with it, only a dawning realization that the only way forward was through, that the most you can handle is one contraction at a time. You muster every ounce of psychic and physical power that you can command and count ten breaths because the doula said you can handle anything for ten breaths, and you have no choice but to believe her.
We often see our traumas as wounds, but can we see them as wombs? Could the blinding pain be a contraction that we cannot conceptualize, but can move through breath by breath, knowing it is not a mark of victimhood but an ability to birth new life?
We were having a lot of trouble getting into Passover this year. And then we saw @tirtzahbassel`s new painting, "Red Sea Parting," (23”x22”, gouache on paper, 2024.) Wish Miriam and her drummers could be our doulas, ushering us through this time.
***
@tirtzahbassel writes—Wound/Womb: A friend sent me an illumination from a medieval Haggadah that portrayed the Israelites emerging from the Red Sea through a vulva-shaped opening, and it made me think of the story of Exodus as a story of birthing.
After I gave birth to my son, I remember telling my friend that “giving birth is one thing you can’t think your way through”. Intellectual preparation or rationalization were so vastly inadequate to meet the intensity of this pain. There was no reasoning with it, only a dawning realization that the only way forward was through, that the most you can handle is one contraction at a time. You muster every ounce of psychic and physical power that you can command and count ten breaths because the doula said you can handle anything for ten breaths, and you have no choice but to believe her.
We often see our traumas as wounds, but can we see them as wombs? Could the blinding pain be a contraction that we cannot conceptualize, but can move through breath by breath, knowing it is not a mark of victimhood but an ability to birth new life?
We lost one of the greats— visionary artist (and beloved children`s book author) Faith Ringgold. May her memory be a blessing. Passover is the perfect time to lift up her midrash (telling/interpretation) of an exodus story with "Here Comes Moses" (2014).
The writing around the edge reads:
Aunt Emmy said he`d find us one day.
That boy came North to freedom in a storm.
He lost his mother and father on the way.
"They`ll never find me in this storm, but we will all find Freedom, God willing.
We were born to be free, I will never give up," said Moses.
Moses was only twelve years old when he came to Jones Road on Thanksgiving Day in 1793.
We lost one of the greats— visionary artist (and beloved children`s book author) Faith Ringgold. May her memory be a blessing. Passover is the perfect time to lift up her midrash (telling/interpretation) of an exodus story with "Here Comes Moses" (2014).
The writing around the edge reads:
Aunt Emmy said he`d find us one day.
That boy came North to freedom in a storm.
He lost his mother and father on the way.
"They`ll never find me in this storm, but we will all find Freedom, God willing.
We were born to be free, I will never give up," said Moses.
Moses was only twelve years old when he came to Jones Road on Thanksgiving Day in 1793.
"I knew his seder was not just a tribute to his grandfather, an affirmation of his own history. It was a refutation of that feeling of not belonging. It was about his experience of being Jewish, saying out loud that being Jewish mattered. Who was I to insist on a place at the head of that table?"
Re-reading Jennifer Burleigh`s "A Place At the Table" as we stare down Pesach—linked in our bio.
Illustration by @sofinaydenova in Lilith`s Fall 2017 issue.
"I knew his seder was not just a tribute to his grandfather, an affirmation of his own history. It was a refutation of that feeling of not belonging. It was about his experience of being Jewish, saying out loud that being Jewish mattered. Who was I to insist on a place at the head of that table?"
Re-reading Jennifer Burleigh`s "A Place At the Table" as we stare down Pesach—linked in our bio.
Illustration by @sofinaydenova in Lilith`s Fall 2017 issue.
