artistic image of shabbat candles, a watch, and a night sky, challah and grass, that says "dream jewish disability justice" and "radical reverent rest"

Shabbat, Chronic Illness, & Radical Rest

By Sophie Hulet February 15, 2024

“I have seen Jewish wisdom anchor chronically ill and disabled people amidst a society that is built, in many ways, to exclude us.”

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Image of a shadowed hand holding a candle against a glowing wall.

Mishpacha: Given and Found

By Elsa Baxter June 8, 2023

“Zadie’s fork clatters on the table, startling me. So, he says, taking a breath to steady himself, I have been told that you are gay.”

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Street Show

By Seth Andrew Bearman October 14, 2022

“I told you, you can. You’re a Jew, I’m a Jew, it’s what we are. We take things. You can take it.”

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Jewish Pentimenti & Looking Backwards For A Media Future: Jewish Media Fellowship Reflection

By Eli Hurwitz June 16, 2022

“What would these Jewish futures look like? What would our canon become, and what would new Jewish media look like? Maybe most importantly, what choices can we make to bring these Judaisms into the present?”

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Review: “These and Those” Tests The Limits of Jewish Safety

By Sophie Hurwitz June 7, 2022

A new play by Ruth Geye paints a critical, intimate portrait of a modern orthodox student Shabbat lunch, asking, “how much are we willing to mutilate our souls in the pursuit of safety?”

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Not All Time Is For Sale: Keeping Shabbat Under Capitalism

By Ezra Lebovitz April 29, 2021

“There are still 25 hours of the week where time holds still, makes room for something quiet and eternal. It is, by its very nature, a world designed to exist outside of capital.”

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Shabbat Magic

By Gali Davar April 16, 2021

“To my surprise, Shabbat dinners became a predictable and grounding occurrence every week. My mom cooked, I set the table, and my dad and brother cleaned up after the meal. Sometimes it was twenty minutes of near silence then everyone scurried off to their bedrooms again. Sometimes it ended in explosive arguments and someone finishing their plate an hour or two later in the kitchen. But sometimes it worked.”

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I Became an Anti-Zionist the Same Way I Became a Jew

By Ben Bienstock November 26, 2019

I remember telling my mother on the first night of Hanukkah sometime in high school that I didn’t want to sing “Hanukkah O Hanukkah” or anything else in English while we lit the candles. However, I also didn’t want or know how to sing the Hebrew prayers, wrapped as they were in religiosity, complicated words, and foreign melodies. 

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4 Tips for DIY Judaism in Small Campus Communities

By Erin Ben-Moche May 22, 2018

If your family is anything like mine, you were raised on mandel bread and ridiculous family stories that felt like a “Seinfeld” reboot in the making. Growing up, I was a proud member of the Metro Detroit Jewish community. I went to shul regularly, sang in the congregational choir, taught at Sunday school, and attended…

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Teaching Disability Inclusion One Shabbat at a Time

By Lily Coltoff August 23, 2017

My initial reaction after the fact was relief. After months of planning, weeks of searching for the perfect readings, and a few crazy days of racing around like a chicken with its head cut off, I had finally crafted my first Friday night Shabbat service. And thankfully, it was a success. Earlier this year, as…

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Cobbling Together a Jewish Life in China, Just Like My Grandparents

By Izzy Ullmann August 21, 2017

Originally published in J. Weekly. Being isolated from community tests one’s commitment to the values and practices that normally bring that community together. This is what the experience of being a Jew in China has taught me. I grew up in the warm embraces of Judaism, spending many hours at Yavneh, a Jewish day school in…

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Students Start Cooking Club to Help Chabad Make Shabbat Dinner

By Hannah Bernstein July 25, 2017

Every Friday at 7:30 p.m., University of Minnesota students pile into the Steiner family’s Chabad House for dinner. As usual, there is homemade challah and matzo ball soup, but there’s also something special – the dinner was made by the students themselves.  That’s because of the Kosher Cooking Club, or KCC. Every Thursday, students get…

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A Shabbaton Taught Me Wellness as a Woman on the Autism Spectrum

By Michele Amira May 26, 2017

Sarah Waxman and I immediately bonded over our curly, Jew-fro-esque hair. As Jewish women have done for centuries, we swapped notes over the creams, conditioners, gels, and mousses we use to keep the frizz away. But what I really learned from Waxman, the founder of a Jewish women’s wellness initiative, was that my mental health…

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The Nights We Remember

By Hannah Weintraub April 28, 2017

My mom lights the Shabbat candles as she covers her eyes with the palms of her hands. The room is dark except for the light in the kitchen, a lamp in the dining room, and the yellow glow from the flames. “Baruch atah Hashem,” she recites the prayer alone, my sisters and I sitting in…

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In Defense of Challaween and Fall Holiday Fusions

By Jillian Gordner November 24, 2016

With Thanksgiving here and Halloween behind us, ‘tis the season to discuss the role of secular holidays in our Jewish lives on campus. Hillels across the country work to keep college students engaged in Jewish programming and within a Jewish community while they are away from home. They are continuously battling increasing secularism, and in the…

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