A congregant tells the rabbi that she has an order of protection against her ex-husband, who is also a congregant of the synagogue. A teacher sees bruises on the arms of a child in her class who says he didn’t fall. An older adult in the community who used to be a regular in shul […]
BUILDING SAFER COMMUNITIES: A Team Approach Read More »
For most of our married life, my wife and I have been members of minyanim with a mehitzah, and currently we are members of Kol Sasson, the partnership minyan in Skokie, Illinois. As a family with two young children, we’ve been at both egalitarian and partnership minyanim over the past five years, with occasional participation
Family Seating at Life-Cycle Events Read More »
Item: A Modern Orthodox community in Queens, New York, celebrating an aufruf, holds Shabbat services in the social hall of the local yeshiva. The opaque mehitzah separating front from back is hung ceiling to floor, completely blocking sightlines. The rabbi, much beloved by his community, delivers his sermon in a voice inaudible to the women.
Why Mehitzot Matter Read More »
For the past ten years I felt that I was an outsider in my own community. I was a single, someone who, in their eyes, was neither here nor there, didn’t belong. When The Layers Project, a photojournalism and interview-based blog about the lives of Jewish women, started profiling people who were single, friends asked
Six Things I Wish I Said Sooner Read More »
We are always taught the value of passing on our traditions, teaching and Jewish practices to our children, even in the daily words of our Shema, veshinantam levanekha. I know that my husband and I take great pride in our four children, who are involved and engaged in the Jewish community in so many different
Our Gift to Our Community: Our Amazing Children, Some of Whom Are LGBT Read More »
You may have met some of us. We are the no longer-married mothers who are raising sons in the Modern Orthodox community. Not always an easy feat. With no specific statistics to impress you, I will share the considerations, frustrations, and consternations of my personal experience. When I was married, we rarely had guests at
Single Moms Raising Sons Read More »
As I look around at my apartment in Washington Heights, I think about how almost none of the objects in it are ones that I picked out myself. From the couches to the silverware to the bookshelves, most of the items in my apartment were either given to me secondhand or were left by someone
A View from the Heights: No Place I’d Rather Be Read More »
Modern Orthodoxy can be thought of as a broad continuum that runs from “centrist” near yeshivish Orthodox on the right to “Open” Orthodox on the left. Across that continuum, Modern Orthodox Jews observe—and some experience—the changing gender roles and gender fluidity, non-marital sexuality, late marriage, non-marriage, intermarriage, and related transformations occurring throughout American society, as
Changing Personal and Family Choices in Contemporary Orthodox Lives Read More »
In the synagogue in which I grew up the senior rabbi had a custom. Every year he would host a number of informal get-togethers in his home for men. During the evening he would obtain their pledges to the shul’s annual campaign. The year my father died, my mother got a call inviting her to
Surely Goodness and Kindness… Read More »
