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10 Yiddish Words and Phrases to Love

Ellie Rudee
In recent years, Yiddish has experienced a remarkable resurgence. Whether you're reconnecting with your heritage or exploring linguistic quirks, Yiddish offers rich expressions to spice up conversations. Here are 10 phrases you should know and use to participate in the Yiddish resurgence.

What Pregnancy Taught Me About Being a Cantor

Cantor Sheila Nesis

Singing during pregnancy is not without challenges, to say the least. Our bodies go through an amazing transformation during pregnancy, and many of them affect the voice.

Extraordinary Ordinary Heroes

Rabbi Deborah Bodin Cohen
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

Michele Braun
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

Crystal Hill
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

Susy Gallor
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.

Holy Sparks: Celebrating 50 Years of Women in the Rabbinate

Jean Bloch Rosensaft
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.

I’d Rather Be Me: An Interview with Jewish Performer Shayna Goldberg

Cantor Rosalie Will
Twenty-year-old Shayna Goldberg is young adult songleader and performer with EPIC Players, a New York-based nonprofit theatre company that opens the stage to all types of artists and seeks to shine a light on neurodiverse talent. Shayna is part of the Adath Emanu-El community in Mount Laurel, N.J.

80 Years Since the Infamous Wannsee Conference

Rabbi A. James Rudin
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.