Extraordinary Ordinary Heroes
Simcha Blass, Helen Suzman, Eddie Jacobson, and Abby Stein all contributed to our world in different ways. Yet, they shared traits - commitment, integrity, resolve and an inner sense that they could make a difference.
Women of Valor: Revisiting Biblical Role Models
Focusing this contemporary lens on Deborah and Yael reveals a story of women acting so outside of expected norms that I stand in awe and am compelled to magnify their adventures for our own times.
Crypto-Foods: the Triumph of Survival
During the Spanish Inquisition, there were plenty of ways that one could be identified as a Jew. One way people would identify their neighbors as Jews was observing whether they would eat non-kosher food that was popular with the Christian population such as pork, sausage, or fish without scales.
Cuban American and Jewish: Exploring the History and Intersections of My Communities
I've been reflecting on the story of America's founding - the narrative many of us learn as children in the United States. I've recently learned a different version of that story - one that I now recognize intertwines with my own. My identities as Cuban American and Jewish have been shaped by Indigenous stories in America and in Cuba; particularly the themes of beginnings, loss, transformation, and change.
Street Visions: Europe, 1934 – Photographs by Reform Philanthropist Richard J. Scheuer
Imagine that you travel back in time to 1934 – when Europe had no inkling of the catastrophic events lying ahead that would transform that continent forever. What would you photograph to capture the authentic essence of human experience at that liminal moment in history?
Holy Sparks: Celebrating 50 Years of Women in the Rabbinate
On June 3, 1972, Rabbi Sally Priesand was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion as the first woman rabbi in North America. To celebrate this milestone in Jewish and American history, HUC's Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York partnered with The Braid's Story Archive of Women Rabbis in Los Angeles to create the exhibition "Holy Sparks," presenting 24 ground-breaking women rabbis who were "firsts" in their time.
80 Years Since the Infamous Wannsee Conference
Eighty years ago on January 20, 1942, the infamous Wannsee Conference took place in a large lakeside three-story mansion in suburban Berlin. Fifteen Nazi German leaders attended the meeting that coordinated plans to "orderly execute" ---murder--- millions of Jews during World War II.
Remembering Kristallnacht After Pittsburgh
On November 9, we will mark the anniversary of Kristallnacht (Night of the Broken Glass), the Third Reich's first large-scale attack on the Jews of Germany and Austria in 1938.
The Eichmann Trial 60 Years Later: What Have We Learned?
April 11, 2021, marks the 60th anniversary of the opening of Adolf Eichmann’s trial, which coincided with the young Jewish state’s bat/bar mitzvah year of independence. These two events represent a microcosm of modern Jewish history.
On Yom HaShoah, Hear the Message of the Saved Remnant
My mother’s answer to hate is love. When I asked her what she wishes for herself and for the world, she said, “For myself good health, so I can be good to others. For the world, peace not war. No bad person wins in the end. What did Hitler achieve?”