Jewish Musical Dreams

By Dani Plung February 12, 2014

Every night, I fall asleep to a playlist titled “Jewish Sleep Music.”  Once upon a time, as a child, it consisted of mainly Kol B’seder’s covers of melodies that I’d learned in Hebrew School, like Shalom Rav and Oseh Shalom. At the time, before I really knew what their lyrics meant, the songs relaxed me because…

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Prayer and Sensory Overload

By Dani Plung December 11, 2013

The first time I went into sensory overload while at college was during a Kabbalat Shabbat service. The just concluded school week had been stressful, and I probably hadn’t eaten enough that day, so perhaps it is not surprising that I went into a sensory attack that evening, while surrounded by about twenty people singing…

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Meta-Cognitive political action, or, why not to be such a reactionary [Politics]

By pkessler March 20, 2012

As a cognitive psychology major, I’m incredibly biased when I say that Roi Ben-Yehuda’s outline of the cognition behind Israel’s recent inflammatory rhetoric is fascinating. However, there’s no denying that history and psychology are irrevocably intertwined, and hopefully Ben-Yehuda and I can make the case that when it comes to diplomacy, a cognitive analysis of…

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Behind Sexual Abuse in Baltimore; An Israel-Iran Imagining; Dumped for God, and more [Required Reading]

By pkessler March 20, 2012

  Standing Silent in Baltimore [Washington Post] Standing Silent, a new documentary exposing sexual abuse in the Jewish community in Baltimore, is Phil Jacobs’, a reporter for the Baltimore Jewish Times, healing project after he too was the victim of sexual abuse. The Washington Post offers haunting photo coverage of Jacobs as he speaks to…

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