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Episode 118: The Femme Fatale in the Sukkah

This Sukkot, we're welcoming a special guest into Can We Talk?’s virtual sukkah: the Talmudic “femme fatale” Homa, one of the women featured in her new book, "The Madwoman in the Rabbi's Attic." In this episode, Talmud scholar Gila Fine tells Homa’s story, reinterprets it from Homa’s perspective, and explains why she thinks Homa makes a fitting symbolic guest for Sukkot.

Elza Niego

In 1927, Elza Niego, a young Jewish woman was stabbed to death by an older Turkish man whose romantic advances she had repeatedly refused. Her murder sparked an intense emotional reaction from Jews, which the Turkish press found unacceptable, leading to antisemitic publications and outbursts, including the arrest of nine Jewish leaders.

Ruth swearing her allegiance to Naomi

Asexuality: A Text Study

Jessie Atkin

I have never looked at a person and thought, Yes, that is someone I want to know in the biblical sense

Suzanne Offit

Project
Boston Women Rabbis

Ronda Spinak interviewed Rabbi Suzanne Offit on March 26, 2014, in Newton, Massachusetts, as part of the Boston Women Rabbis Project. Suzanne began her rabbinical studies around the age of forty and shares her journey of embracing her Jewish identity, discusses her work in end-of-life care, including a special encounter with Charlotte Bloomberg and the subsequent grant to Hebrew College, and reflects on the transformation of her marriage and spiritual practices throughout her rabbinical education.

Image shows book cover reading "Places we Left Behind - A Memoir-in-Miniature" with the authors name, Jennifer Lang, on an open cardboard box; right hand side shows woman with brown hair and glasses standing ourdoors

Q & A with Jennifer Lang, Author of "Places We Left Behind"

Jodie Sadowsky

JWA chats with author Jennifer Lang about her forthcoming book, Places We Left Behind: a memoir in miniature. 

Topics: Marriage, Memoirs, Israel

Episode 94: Rebbetzins in America

What did talented, dedicated Jewish women do before they could become rabbis? Some became rebbetzins. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we’re looking at the changing role of the rebbetzin—the rabbi’s wife. Women have been rabbis in America for just over half a century, but for as long as there have been rabbis, there have been rabbi’s wives—and they've often served as leaders, too. We'll hear from Shuly Rubin Schwartz, author of The Rabbi’s Wife: The Rebbetzin in American Jewish Life, and from three spouses of rabbis.

Collage of Alexa and Brennon Lemieux from Netflix's Love is Blind on purple patterned background

Celebrating An Inter-religious Couple on Love Is Blind

Sonia Freedman

Although I was somewhat unimpressed by Love Is Blind’s surface-level coverage of inter-religious relationships, it was beautiful to watch the Lemieux fall in love despite their very different backgrounds.

German-Jewish Pietists: Attitudes towards Women

Despite their small numbers, the introspective and penitential religious outlook of the German-Jewish Piestists had a significant and lasting impact on European Jewry. Written by men and intended for a male audience, the Pietists’ writings heighten the profound ambivalence toward women that is inherent in the rabbinic tradition

Fleishman is in Trouble promo image

"Fleishman is in Trouble" Asks Universal Questions

Sarah Jae Leiber

This very Jewish TV adaptation of the bestselling novel crackles with sharply drawn characters and brilliant performances. 

Episode 83: Fighting for Israel's "Chained Women"

In Israel, marriage and divorce are governed by Jewish law and controlled by the ultra-Orthodox rabbinical courts. If a Jewish woman wants a divorce, she has to get permission from her husband—and he can refuse. That's exactly what happens to about 1 in 5 Jewish women in Israel who want a divorce, according to a recent survey. In this episode of 'Can We Talk?,' we speak with Kylie Eisman-Lifschitz, board chair of Mavoi Satum, about how rabbinical control over the divorce process in Israel harms Jewish women, and about how organizations like Mavoi Satum are taking on the problem, by working with women one-on-one, but also by fighting for systemic change. 

Postcard of a family of four dressed in Kittels

Frolicking Maidens and the Hidden History of the Kittel

Leora Krygier

The kittel is commonly worn by men on Yom Kippur, but their ancient use by young maidens to attract husbands is little known.

Missode Israel Piha

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Roz Bornstein interviewed Missode Israel Piha on June 28 and September 6, 2001, in Seattle, Washington as part of the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. Piha details her family history and upbringing in a religious household in Greece, discussing Jewish customs, traditions, and holiday celebrations, as well as her journey to the United States, and settling in Seattle with family.

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

Frieda Piepsch Sondland

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Roz Bornstein interviewed Frieda Sondland on May 1 and 17, 2001, in Mercer Island, Washington, as part of the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. Frieda recounts her family's escape from Nazi Germany, their journey to South America, and their eventual settlement in Seattle, highlighting community involvement, and the challenges of parenting and aging.

Jewish Women and Intermarriage in the United States

Marriages between Jews and people of other faiths have long fascinated scholars, clergy, and communal leaders, who often considered the choice of a Jewish spouse as an indication of the strength of ethnoreligious identity and commitment to perpetuating Judaism and the Jewish people. However, many Jewish women who intermarry in the United States continue to identify Jewishly, engage in the Jewish community, and raise Jewish children.

This entry uses gender as category of analysis and change over time to illuminate the experience and meaning of interfaith marriage for Jewish women in America. It describes how women navigated their ethnoreligious identities when they married Gentile men, the influences of feminism, the rise of ethnic consciousness, and parenthood.

Episode 77: Word of the Week: Yenta

How did a popular Yiddish woman's name come to mean gossip and busybody? In the first of our new Word of the Week mini-series, we trace the evolution of the word yenta. Producer Jen Richler talks with Fiddler on the Roof scholar Jan Lisa Huttner, comedian Judy Gold, author Lizzie Skurnick, and TikTok star and Torah commentator Miriam Anzovin. And in a special cameo...Yente the Matchmaker herself!

Helène Aylon

Helene Aylon was an American, New York-based, multimedia visual artist who began by creating process art in the 1970s, focused on anti-nuclear and eco-activist art by the 1980s, and subsequently devoted more than 35 years to the multi-partite installation The G-d Project. This last body of work’s often direct or indirect textuality resonates from and responds to Judaism’s traditionally male-dominated textuality as part of a larger commentary on women in Judaism.

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.

Photo of writer's grandmother as a child on left; grandmother and writer on right

My Jewish Grandma’s Christmas Pierogis

Marissa Wojcik

With each handcrafted pierogi, my grandma honors her husband's traditions while holding on to her strong Jewish identity. 

The Intimacy Experiment Book Cover (cropped)

Finally, a Positive, Feminist Jewish Take on Sex

Zia Saylor

This new book offers a sex-positive perspective often lacking in Jewish spaces.

Alix Kates Shulman

Alix Kates Shulman is a radical feminist writer and activist and a leader in the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s through 1980s.  She is best known as the author of “The Marriage Agreement” (1970) and the best-selling Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen (1972), which was heralded as the “first important novel of the Women’s Liberation movement.” She was honored with a Clara Lemlich Award for a lifetime of social activism in 2018.

Women and Sephardic Music

Ladino or Judeo-Spanish Sephardic songs are primarily a women’s repertoire. The two main traditions are that of northern Morocco and the Eastern Mediterranean, primarily today’s Turkey, Greece, the Balkans.

Judith Sheindlin

For two and half decades, former New York family court Judge Judith Sheindlin has riveted daytime viewers, racked up awards, and sold thousands of books to people hungry for the tough love of a tough Jewish mother. Millions of viewers who watch Judge Judy every day are treated to many Yiddish words and wisdom the jurist uses on a parade of deserving participants who enter her TV studio courtroom.

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