I run into a bind every time I try to describe Darkhei Noam. I say that it is a minyan on the Upper West Side of Manhattan with a mechitzah, at which a woman leads pesukei dezimrah and the tefillot surrounding kri’at hatorah, a man leads shacharit and musaf, and both men and women layn
Meaningful Prayer: A New Community Read More »
I am an artist; artistic in the ways that I integrate and decode the world into my mind and soul, and in the ways I share it with others. That includes my relationship with God and Torah, my identity as a woman, and my approach as a Jewish educator. When I am presented with a
Bringing the Arts to the Community Read More »
I was describing my new video/film to a man in the Orthodox community. I told him that I was working on a piece about kashrut—keeping kosher—in America. After I described some of the segments that I had already filmed, the people that I had interviewed and what I still planned to do, he replied with
Art Should Make You Think Read More »
Seasons are tricky business in the Jewish calendar. Traditionally, our spiritual year begins in autumn in the month of Tishrei, but a case can also be made that the month of Nissan is the first month of the calendar. Spring has always represented birth and rebirth. Nowhere is this rebirth more apparent than during the
The Arts and the Prophetess Miriam Read More »
25 YEARS AGO I was not born Orthodox but my quest for a Jewish identity led me there. As a young woman, discovering her path, I lingered a great deal before passing through the gates of Orthodoxy: I worried that crossing this threshold would mean relinquishing my independence. In other words, I assumed there to
Crossing a Threshold Read More »
Q: Your volume of Shir Hashirim, “The Song of Songs: The Honeybee in the Garden”, was published in a popular edition by the Jewish Publication Society last year. A traveling exhibit of the original artwork is presently touring museums in North America. When did you start your work with Judaic illumination and calligraphy? A: I’ve
Manuscript Illumination: Bringing Light to the Page An Interview with Debra Band Read More »
When I started out wanting to be a writer, my plan was to show all the beauty of religious life as I had experienced and understood it. If, at that time, anyone would have described to me the books that I was destined to write, books in which religious men beat their religious wives; books
Truth is Not Stranger Than Fiction Read More »
It is early in the morning, and the two other girls are asleep. Seven girls in the same room…. I cannot turn on the light, so I put on my uniform and read the words of the siddur very slowly and quietly. When I finish, I leave the room and go to my office. I
A Time to Learn and a Time to Serve Read More »
A few weeks ago, in a hall in Jerusalem, twelve excited women were called up to the stage to receive their diploma from the dean and founder of Nishmat, Rabbanit Chana Henkin, and from Rabbis Yaakov Varhaftig and Yehuda Henkin. The occasion was the graduation of the fourth class of Nishmat’s Keren Ariel Yoatzot Halacha
A Primary Address for Women Read More »
I went out to dinner the other night with two good friends. They are both Jewish and very interested in things Jewish, although they are not observant. Jay was very anxious to talk to me. He has been taking a religion class at Princeton and the professor just spent a session on Orthodox Judaism. Jay’s
