Jofa Recent Media

A Call for Open Conversation on Reproduction and Sexuality

By Rivka Cohen Growing up in a Modern Orthodox community, I did not encounter open or positive discourse about female sexuality. Besides the quick basics of reproduction covered in biology ...
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Book Reviews by Roselyn Bell

America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to TodayBy Pamela S. NadellW.W. Norton, 2019, $28.95Pamela Nadell paints on a broad canvas—American Jewish women’s history—that has been employed before by ...
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Halakhic Infertility, Halakhic Solutions

By David BigmanOver the past hundred years, as medical knowledge has advanced, it became clear that infertility was a problem among a small percentage of the halakhically observant population. Jewish ...
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A Maharat Speaks of her Fertility Journey

By Ruth Balinsky Friedman In March 2016, I decided to “go public” with my fertility journey. This decision was born mostly out of a lurking feeling of dishonesty. Ohev Sholom, ...
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The Silent Struggle of Infertility

By Tricia Anbinder and Elana Frank A staggering one in eight couples will experience challenges in achieving and maintaining pregnancy. Some studies report that the number is closer to one ...
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In the Grove

By Deborah Wenger Let me start by acknowledging my privilege. I am lucky to live in a temperate climate, where outdoor gatherings have not been out of the question for ...
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Mikveh in Washington in the Age of COVID

By Barbara Trainin Blank Expectations don’t always tally with reality.COVID-19 may have closed mikva’ot for a time—or, at the very least, reduced their usage, as women feared becoming infected. In ...
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Immerse Again: On Performance and Mikveh During COVID-19

By Stephanie L. Stillman My first encounter with the mikveh was at 27, when I met with my converting beit din for the last time. I had never seen the ...
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Sharsheret’s Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Devorah SilvermanThe COVID-19 pandemic was devastating. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, and millions experienced isolation and social recessions from which it will take years to recover. If ...
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Did COVID-19 Change Us, and How? A Study of Four Modern Orthodox Communities

By Michelle Shain“Shabbat Morning Groups for Our Children Are Back … this Shabbat!” read the subject line of an email from my synagogue sent a few months ago, in May ...
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An Appreciation for Mikva’ot

By Meira E. Schneider-AtikWhen COVID-19 broke out, most mikva’ot closed, but many women’s mikva’ot remained open. I remember hearing some who were angry that women’s mikva’ot weren’t closing as well, ...
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Disruption Can Be Our Friend

By Pam ScheiningerAs I sat down to write this article, I kept coming back to the thought, “What do I have to say about COVID that has not already been ...
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Kaddish, in Retrospect

By Yehudit Robinson I didn’t expect to say Kaddish with any regularity. When my father, Morris Robinson, died in late January 2020, I intended to recite only the three Kaddishes ...
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My Judaism in Quarantine

By Danielle Resh The absence of community left space for imagining. The eastern corner of my bedroom became the Almighty’s throne. Whispered words materialized—God picking up the homeless from the ...
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The New Normal: Something to Look Forward To

By Daphne Lazar Price “I’m ready to get back to normal.” I hear those words out loud and in my head daily. And even as I write them here, I ...
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