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My career path wasn't always clear, and certainly not straight, but I recently discovered that I can draw a direct line from my current role as inaugural national director of Ta'amod: Stand Up! to the guiding Jewish values of my upbringing.
Raised by parents who marched on Washington, protested during the civil rights movement, and advocated for public school reform, the language of activism and equity was commonplace in my house and directly impacted my upbringing. I have vivid memories of my mother’s League of Women Voters’ meetings, as they...
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It sounds like an old joke, about a rabbi and a priest walking into a bar.
But Keeping the Faith, a romantic comedy released 20 years ago this month, stretched the premise into one of the more clever films of its genre, and the rare Hollywood movie that takes questions of religious faith and obligation seriously.
Keeping the Faith was the directorial debut of actor Edward Norton, from a screenplay by the Jewish writer Stuart Blumberg, who had been Norton’s roommate at Yale. Set on New York City’s heavily Jewish Upper West...
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The COVID-19 crisis has impacted nearly everyone across the globe, and the Jewish community is no exception. With so many unanswered questions about when we can return to normal life (and if that’s even possible) both within and outside of our Jewish communities, it’s easy for so many of us to feel scared, alone, and even angry.
Those of us who are Jews of Color – comprising approximately 12 percent of the U.S. Jewish community – feel a particular sense of isolation and anxiety.
“As a Black person, I am really worried,” says Jordan Berg Powers, director of Boston-based,...
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This is the third year in row that I’ve interviewed my mother, Adela, a Holocaust survivor, for Mother’s Day. In our 2018 and 2019 interviews, she revealed memories that she’d previously kept to herself, like the last time she saw her own mother. Knowing little about my martyred maternal grandmother, I decided there was no better time to ask.
ReformJudaism.org: What memories...
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In season two of the Hulu comedy Shrill, based on the book by Lindy West, there’s a restaurant scene in which the central character’s mom closely monitors her daughter’s food intake. It’s clear the tendency is familiar — even in their relationship as adults, the mother discloses her almost political stance against dessert and bread baskets.
After the episode, I messaged my friends to see if their...
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