Jewish Education

Content type
Collection
Collage of Illustrated Figures in Front of Asexual and Aromantic Pride Flag Colored Rainbows

What "Be Fruitful and Multiply" Means for Ace and Aro Jews

Talia Bloom

Queerness, asexuality, and aromanticism don't take away our ability to fulfill the mitzvah, "Be fruitful and multiply"; in some ways, they actually open up our world.

Hanna Weinberg

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Jean Freedman interviewed Hanna Weinberg on June 10, 2001, in Baltimore, Maryland, as part of the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. Weinberg shares her immigration story from Germany and Lithuania to the United States, her experiences growing up in various cities, her marriage to Rabbi Yaacov Weinberg, her community involvement, and her reflections on raising a large family and widowhood.

Episode 80: Toxic Hookup Culture in Jewish Youth Groups and Summer Camps

Jewish summer camps and youth movements are a time-honored tradition—tens of thousands of Jewish teens participate. But a group of young Jews is calling out what they say is a “toxic hookup culture” in many of these institutions. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Jen Richler talks with Dahlia Soussan, Ellanora Lerner and Madeline Canfield, three of the founders of Jewish Teens for Empowered Consent, about how they hope to change the culture. Please note, there are sexual references in this episode.

Elana Moscovitch and her daughter

I Taught at a Jewish School Before I Came Out. Twenty Years Later, I Went Back.

Elana Moscovitch

This time around, I could be open about my family and my identity and not worry about derogatory comments.

Liz Kleinrock Instagram Still (with Brené Brown quote "if you're not in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I'm not interested in your opinion"

Learning Asian Jewish History Helped Me Make Space for Both My Identities

Liz Kleinrock

In learning the rich history of Jews in Asia, I finally found a sense of belonging.

Collage with Outline of Western Wall and Illustrated Woman Facing Away From It

In the Streets of Jerusalem: Discovering What Jewish Space Means to Me

Maddie Nowack

Throughout my many years of Hebrew school, I was taught that Israel was supposed to be my second home. After I traveled there, I realized this couldn’t be further from the truth for me.

Raven Schwam-Curtis TikTok Still #2

How I Make Black Jews Visible Through the Magic of TikTok

Raven Schwam-Curtis

My TikToks educate, validate, and celebrate Black Jewish identity.

Twersky fellow Lucy Marshall standing and talking to a small group of people

5 Things I’ve Learned as JWA’s Twersky Fellow

Lucy Marshall

JWA's 2020-2022 Twersky fellow reflects on what she's learned over the past two years. 

Illustrated Figure Holding Star of David in Hands Standing in Righthand Corner

"Jewish Enough": Hanukkah for a Small Town Interfaith Teen

Abigail Gilman

For most of my life, I’ve felt like I’m not Jewish enough.

Collage of Photos from Lucy Waldorf's Internship at Adamah

Growing My Identity and My Feminism Through Jewish Farming

Lucy Waldorf

The new movement of Jewish agricultural and regenerative farming has been at the center of my identity development.

Collage of teenage girl, background of Jewish stars and backpacks, pencils, computers

Jewish Schools Aren't Making the Grade

Rose Clubok

If we want to engage young Jews, we need to rethink how we educate them.

Collage of Zoom Youth Phone-Banking Call Screenshot and Shabbat Candles, Pomegranate Symbol

The Power of Jewish Community: From Synagogue Services to Zoom Phone-Banking

Maddie Feldman

To this day, I’m astounded by congregants’ enthusiasm as they hopped on weekly—and eventually daily—Zoom voter phone-banking sessions.

Yeshivat Maharat

Founded by Rabba Sara Hurwitz and Rabbi Avi Weiss, Yeshivat Maharat is the first Orthodox rabbinical school to ordain women. Building upon expanding education and ritual roles for Orthodox women in America that began in the late twentieth century, themselves outgrowths of American feminism, as of 2021 Yeshivat Maharat had graduated over forty women who powerfully impact Orthodox and wider Jewish communities all over the world.

Six year old in pink dress seated next to elderly man dressed in a suit, sitting in pews at a synagogue

My Grandfather: Guide in My Jewish Feminist Journey

Simone Feinblum

It may seem strange to credit my 87-year-old grandfather for the development of my Jewish and feminist identities, but he helped me gain the confidence to speak my mind and advocate for myself.

Rezadeiras among Bene Anusim in Portugal

The rezadeiras, prayer-women, began to play an important role in crypto-Jewish practice after the late fifteenth-century Expulsions from Spain and then Portugal forced anyone who wanted to live as a Jew to do so in secret.  

Karen Sarhon

Karen Gerson Sarhon, founder and vocalist of the Sephardic music group Los Pasharos Sefaradis, is coordinator of the Sephardic Culture Research Center in Istanbul, Turkey, and chief editor of El Amaneser, the world's only newspaper wholly in Judeo-Spanish/Ladino. She continues to produce innovative projects for the preservation and promotion of Sephardic culture and language.

 

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg is a highly regarded Torah scholar and author. Her complex interpretive lens is both contemporary, in drawing from literary sources, philosophy, and psychoanalytic theory, and very traditional, in reading the Bible through the lens of classic commentaries and rabbinic midrash.

Monica Unikel

Mónica Unikel-Fasja is a chronicler of Jewish immigrant stories. She created a dozen guided walking tours in Mexico City and revitalized the oldest Ashkenazi synagogue as a bastion of Jewish culture, designating it a treasure trove of history fully accessible to the general public.

Leike Kogan

Lía Gilinski de Kogan, known as Leike Kogan (1911-2001), was a prominent activist in the Yiddisher Kultur Farband (YKUF/ ICUF) and its women's movement (Organización Femenina del ICUF, OFI), linked to the Yiddish-speaking section of the Argentine Communist Party. She stood out as a leader and teacher in the schools belonging to this network.

Mina Fridman Ruetter

Mina Fridman Ruetter (1922-2003), an Argentinean-born Jew, was the most prominent leader of the Yiddisher Kultur Farband (YKUF) beginning in the 1970s. She studied and worked as a writer, teacher, and translator in organizations linked to the Communist Party and the Soviet Union. She was a highly visible leader and the disciple of YKUF intellectuals such as Pinie Katz and Samuel Gordon.

Photo of Sarah Schenirer

Tracing the Roots of Jewish Women's Education

Ellie Klibaner-Schiff

Sarah Schenirer started the revolution—that is still in process today—to create equal Torah learning opportunities for women.

"Untitled" by Sonia Delaunay, 1917

Each Time I Enter the Synagogue: A Teen on Antisemitic Gun Violence

Madeline Canfield

My reaction to antisemitic gun violence is not one of fear, but of alertness to a threat far more normalized for me than for my elders.

souvenir name mugs featuring illustrated fish. Names "Eva" and "Hanna" are on the mug.

Learning to Love My Name

Ari Fogel

I always knew my name was about to be called when a teacher announced with an almost mocking grin, “I know I’m gonna butcher this one…”

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