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Prayer

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Collection
Collage of pink and purple flowers over Torah scroll

Singing Eshet Chayil to My Four Matriarchs

Shiraz Rothschild

Instead of using the poem the way a husband would honor his wife for taking care of the entire family, I chose to use Eshet Chayil as my way of thanking and expressing the awe that I have for these female role models in my family.

Topics: Ritual, Prayer
Album cover showing two faces and the words Monajat: Galeet Dardashti featuring Younes Dardashti

7 Questions For Galeet Dardashti

Mirushe "Mira" Zylali

JWA talks to Dr. Galeet Dardashti, cultural anthropologist and singer, about her new album Monajat.

Collage of waves, hamsa, and woman's face on pink orange background

Dancing Into a Feminist Future

Adina Gerwin

The idea that Miriam will dance with us to repair the broken world paints an image of a world in which change is actually achievable. How beautiful is the thought that we can advocate for a world that swirls with gender equality?

Topics: Prayer, Ritual, Dance

Elaine Zecher

Project
Boston Women Rabbis

Ronda Spinak interviewed Rabbi Elaine Zecher in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 20, 2024, for the Boston Women Rabbis Oral History Project. Zecher, senior rabbi of Temple Israel of Boston, shares her journey as a female rabbi, her experiences as the first woman rabbi at Temple Israel, her love for liturgy and involvement in prayer book projects, her spiritual practices, Temple Israel's work with AIDS victims, and her deep connection to the universal values of Judaism.

Louise Azose

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Roz Bornstein interviewed Louise Azose on April 18 and May 26, 2001, in Seattle, Washington, as part of the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. A Sephardic Jew from Turkey, Azose shares her immigration experience, family life, involvement in her synagogue, traditional cooking, cultural customs, the challenges of separation from her family, raising her children during World War II, the role of singing in her family, and her travels.

Episode 81: Linke Fligl Ends With Love

On a hot, humid day in late August, Nahanni Rous joined a gathering at Linke Fligl, a queer Jewish chicken farm and cultural organizing project in New York's Hudson Valley. (Linke Fligl is a pun—Yiddish for "left wing.") For the past seven years, queer Jews have celebrated holidays, farmed, and built community on this ten-acre, off-the-grid piece of land—but the project is coming to a close. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we walk the land at Linke Fligl, talk to people at the final gathering, and hear from founder Margot Seigle about how the project started and why it's ending.

Photo of Daniela Gesundheit and her album cover, featuring a woman with her face in her hands and the words "Alphabet of Wrongdoing" in jumbled letters

Q & A with Daniela Gesundheit About her New Album, "Alphabet of Wrongdoing"

Sarah Jae Leiber

JWA talks with musician, vocalist, and composer Daniela Gesundheit about how her new album, Alphabet of Wrongdoing, makes the sacred accessible. 

A white cloth with the words "Gut Morgen" (Good Morning in Yiddish) followed by the initials R.L.

Restoring Hope Along with a Family Heirloom

Sheila Solomon Shotwell

Restoring my great aunt’s linen is a tribute to her for embracing my non-Jewish mother, in defiance of her family.

Topics: Crafts, Marriage, Prayer
Collage of two faces with Star of David and Muslim star and crescent

I’m Jewish. My Partner is Muslim. Here’s How We Make It Work.

Zia Saylor

Celebrating our differences has brought my partner and me closer—but it hasn’t always been easy.

Collage with Prayer Book over Background with Illustrated Fists in the Air

“Good Humans”: Leading a Mini Feminist Revolution as a Camp Songleader

Talia Bloom

Women can add, and have historically added, so much to Jewish culture and faith; I wanted this to be reflected at my camp, starting with the prayer books we read from.

Collage of Images From Georgia Fried's Bat Mitzvah

Fighting to Include the Imahot at My B'nai Mitzvah

Georgia Fried

I decided that I, a thirteen year old, would convince the rabbi of my synagogue to change a rule no one else had successfully challenged.

Illustration for "With All Your Heart" Weekly Prayer Book: Image drawn with crayon of woman with red hair, bordered by color blocking in blue and maroon

A Young Feminist's Siddur

Elle Rosenfeld

When I stared down at my siddur for the first time, the one I would come to memorize, I ran my pudgy fingers over the fiery red woman featured on its glossy cover.

Topics: Feminism, Prayer
Photo of Monterey Bay

Revelations Through Music at Jewish Summer Camp

Ella Thompson

At camp, every song had a different tune, and for every prayer I knew, there were four more I didn’t.

White chairs against a black wall

A Seat at My Orthodox Jewish School’s Ma’ariv Service

Lana Klein

There were no chairs in the women's section of my school's shul. 

Louise Glück

Louise Glück, American poet, essayist, and educator, was the recipient of the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, as well as numerous other awards for her writing; she also served as poet laureate of the United States from 2003 to 2004. One finds the personal, the mythological, and the Biblical woven intricately throughout Glück’s oeuvre.

Album Cover for "If Not Now, When?" by Debbie Friedman

Inspired by Debbie Friedman: Building Inclusive Movements

Maddy Pollack

I hope that contemporary feminists can learn from Debbie Friedman and bring people together through interactive art.

Sunrise over the Kinneret in Israel. Figure in the foreground on rocks.

"A Light unto the Nations": The Power of our Words

Lilah Peck

My Judaism guides me to use my words in order to lead a mindful life of gratitude.

Topics: Prayer
Young woman wearing tefillin and holding a prayer book during a service. Surrounded by fellow campers.

On the Sanctity of My Tefillin

Hannah Landau

For two hours a day, three days a week, the Orthodox rabbi led us through the strict and meticulous process of tefillin-making.

Topics: Summer Camps, Prayer
Two women wearing tallit are moving away from the wall, a police officer looking at them and speaking to them. Another woman films the event on her phone.

The Wall Between My Identities

Sasha Azizi Rosenfeld

I expected to feel emotion and attachment to the Kotel. However, despite the burning midday sun, my first visit left me cold.

Three figures, arms over shoulders, walking on a paved road. Guard towers lined alongside them.

Prayers in Majdanek

Isabel Hoffman

Last March, as I prepared to visit Holocaust sites as part of my high school semester in Israel, I braced myself.

Topics: Holocaust, Prayer
Lisa Feld at the Kotel

Celebrating the New Moon in Jerusalem

Merle Feld

Activist and writer Merle Feld recounts a harrowing experience praying at the Kotel with Women of the Wall.

Silhouette of a Girl

Fixing the Flaws in Perfection

Ilana Jacobs

Every “perfect girl” I have ever met has been so humble, that they can turn a compliment into self-deprecation. It is so unbearably heartbreaking to me that these girls who are so marvelous all don’t know how marvelous they are. But the truly terrifying truth is that their humility and self-consciousness seem to be an essential part of being the “perfect girl.”

Ruby Russell at the Kotel

Am I Welcome at the Wall?

Ruby Russell

The first time I visited the Kotel (Western Wall), I cried. I know, this is nothing unusual. This historic place often invokes intense spiritual connection or deep reflection from its visitors, moving them to tears. I was certainly overcome by emotion, but for a completely different set of reasons.

Girl Blowing Shofar

The Harm of Tshuvah: A Letter from an Abuse Survivor

Rakhel Silverman

People view forgiveness as the secret to healing, as if it isn’t a long painful process of flashbacks, relapsing, shame, medication, and therapy, as if there’s some easy way to heal that I have been too prideful to consider. To view forgiveness as the apex of survivors’ progress trivializes each person’s individual struggle.

Cantor Alisa Pomerantz-Boro

Blazing a Trail, One Note at a Time

Sofia Gardenswartz

I’ve always considered words to hold a certain power. As the old saying goes, “the pen is mightier than the sword.” So, when I was sitting in the front row as my little brother was called to the Torah for the first time as a bar mitzvah, something struck me about the language of the event. Usually, the English translation in the siddurim (prayer books) follows the literal Hebrew on the opposite page, reading “God” for “Adonai” and “He” for “Hu.” But in the readings that day, God was genderless. The biblical Hebrew that has been passed down for millennia wasn’t changed, but the English translation avoided the use of any pronouns that would invoke gender. 

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