Jews and Tattoos, in all their complex glory • Are you ready for the new abortion landscape? • Comfort food forever • This legendary labor activist and her surprising choices • Antisemitism on Facebook • A girlhood in Eastern Europe, before the Nazis came...
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Whether it’s a full sleeve of biblical figures or a small flower on an ankle, every tattoo has a story to tell.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the bright light and try to imagine sun on my face, and the padded table a chaise lounge.
Here’s news you’ve been fearing. It’s a matter of when, not if, Roe v. Wade will be overturned.
She placed a cutting of pansies (representing love, thoughtfulness and remembrance) on my lower back—done in public, it was another step in reclaiming my power and personhood.
As a soon-to-be rabbi I’ve thought about what I might say when questioned about my tattoos. Tattoos represent the boldness of what it means to be living. They have also helped me heal.
For me, my tattoos are declarations of what I love, what is important to me, and who I am.
When I decided to get my first tattoo, I knew it would be a rose in her memory to remind myself and family that her life had meaning and was a blessing.
For years, I wanted to get a tattoo in honor of my best friend, Hannah, who was killed in a plane crash on New Year’s eve, 2018. As time passed... Read more »
By creating a part of my body apart from the genes of my parents, I am renaming my body, and imprinting it with my own mark.
The number that they inscribed on my grandfather’s arm, coincidentally or serendipitously, totaled 18. One of my favorite things he ever said was, “They tried to write our deaths, little did they know they inscribed life onto our arms.”
Some of my inks were quite painful, but as I get them I think to myself, “This is easier than it was being homeless,” or “There’s a Nazi out there who could handle this, don’t let him beat you.”
"The idea that Black people can’t is based in the institutional racism of tattoo history.” Who knew? I have an amazing technicolor Ocean cresting on my shoulder.
One of the first things they did to Jewish women when they took them in Morocco, they tattooed their faces, like to say “For life, you are not a Jew anymore.”
"my grandmother squeezed regrets and rough journeys through white muslin"
Shmita is a reminder that we are all the same: temporary tenants wholly dependent on the gifts of this God-given world.
Back in October, the Union for Reform Judaism sent out an email to their mailing list titled “An Important Update for Our URJ Community.” As I scanned the message, my... Read more »
One of the reasons I love tattooing so much is, to me, it does feel like a reclamation of something that was done to us that we now have the power to control, take back and use for our liberation.
Tattoos, crazy hair, and a prosthetic leg do not take away from my badass Jewishness.
[The Torah] seems to be telling us that this too is holy, too, the moments we do not choose obedience.
I am more myself now than I was without a single tattoo, and I think that is inherently God-loving. To love myself so wholly is to love God the same way.
There's a defiant spirit inherent to Judaism that I carry with my practice. My tattoos make life enjoyable for me; they helped me find my queer identity and love my body.
This fall’s hot-off-the-presses report that there is rampant sexual abuse in the Reform Movement that has been covered up for decades should come as no surprise to anyone who has... Read more »
