I used to wear tie-dye. A lot of it. I also used to wear awkward length skirts, brightly colored shirts, and sparkly jewelry. It was a middle school phase; everyone is entitled to one. But it was also more than a phase. It was the time before I cared what people thought of me.
It is a general truism that in a society which prioritizes one’s physical appearance over one’s personality, dressing outside of the established norm is often a form of social self-ruin. It is also a general truism that the delicate ecosystem of Jewish private school isn’t the place most conducive to experimentation with gender expression through clothing.
Jessica Posner Odede first came to Nairobi with dreams of volunteering with a theater program, but her experiences in the slums of Kiberia drew her to co-found Shining Hope for Communities, creating a girls’ school as a hub for social services ranging from medical aid to clean power and water initiatives.
Shaped by Yiddish culture from an early age, Rachel Ertel sparked a love of Jewish studies in others through her work as the most respected scholar of Yiddish in France.
An education reformer who helped spearhead preschool programs for NCJW and United Way, Schenk focused her attention after Katrina on rebuilding schools.
Bluma Rivkin’s experiences of the devastation of Katrina and the struggles to rebuild were profoundly shaped by her humor, her compassion, and her work as a shlucha (Chabad emissary).
Accustomed as a shlucha (Chabad emissary) to helping those in her community, Bluma Rivkin went into action after Hurricane Katrina, first with the pressing concerns of finding housing and aid for evacuees, then with the larger task of rebuilding the community.
One of the rare Supreme Court Justices who had never served as a lower court judge, Elena Kagan has made her mark on the court as a liberal Justice with a gift for engaging dissents that avoided legal jargon.