Bubbie’s kitten heels click on the wet pavement as we make our way toward the doors. I scramble to keep up, my seven year old legs restrained in my Old Navy white slacks. She rustles through her purse for the tickets that prove we belong here. Opening her gnarled hands, she presents them to the police officers, their uniforms a stark contrast against the soft white entrance. Inside, the lively stream of congregants trickles down to a quiet hum as we enter the sanctuary. Zadie’s brow crinkles and knees bend as he wraps his tallit around him. We silently enter the shul and sit down to pray. That ..read more

One of the Jewish virtues I love the most is the value of wonder. The fact that every natural wonder, from the sight of a rainbow to the smell of a spice, is given a brachah – the fact we are commanded to notice the world for what it is and what it offers – is such an awesome thing. In that vein, I try to look to nature to see what I can learn about being a Jew and a person on this Earth. Sometimes the simplest things can teach the greatest life lessons. Make me like a tree rooted on the water, with fruit to give in its time. Make me like lightning descending from the sky, illum ..read more

The first time The Child appeared, I was eating sparks. My mouth hung open like a panting dog as I hacked away at the rock. The impact sent red streaking and the smell of it was seeping onto my tongue. It was blazing hot, the heat from the sun radiated through the mine, trapping it and burning the men to their very core.  I brought the pickaxe back, resting it on my shoulder, and dragging a dirt-caked hand across my forehead. As I wiped away the sweat, my eyes flicked to the side, trailing up the incline, and landing on the mine’s opening. Bathed in the pouring light, stood a small figure ..read more

“Golde, darling, I had to see you before I left because I have such news for you,” Yente, the matchmaker, says to Golde, placing a basket of apples on a wooden table. Golde looks at me, rolling her eyes. The matchmaker always has news for us. Yente goes on, “All my life I’ve dreamed of going to one place and now I’ll walk, I’ll crawl, I’ll get there. Every year at Passover what do we say? Next year in Jerusalem. Next year in the Holy Land.”  “You’re going to the Holy Land?” Golde asks, standing up. We both know Yente is too frail to survive such a journey with nothing but the clothes on h ..read more

Food Rituals in a Thin-Obsessed World  The first time I “broke” Passover, I was ten years old. The sun had set on the sixth day of the holiday, and my family was resting upstairs, innocent to what I was about to do. Shaking, I cowered in a dark corner of the dining room corner with a bag of cinnamon raisin bread that had gone overlooked. I stuffed pieces of fluffy bread into my mouth, testing what it would feel like to eat the forbidden thing. When the thrill subsided, I felt a paralyzing pain grip my body. I wasn’t afraid of being punished by God – an anxiety I would later hear about fro ..read more

Catherine Horowitz, the 2022-23 New Voices Magazine/Judaism Unbound fellow, joins Lex Rofeberg for a conversation on how TV, and the way we watch it, creates ritual. They also discuss how we can use TV to further shape our religious practices and communities. Access full shownotes for this episode via this link.         The post The Torah of Reality TV — Jumping the Fence, Jewishly (Judaism Unbound Podcast) appeared first on New Voices ..read more

Tattoos She first held my hand the week we were told not to. We were told not to, but it felt so right. It felt so right, I could almost understand why God said no; no human should be allowed to experience this amount of joy and love from such a simple interaction. Such a simple interaction, yet it’s got my heart racing and wanting more. I’m wanting more, and When she first kisses my cheek it rights wrongs I didn’t even know were happening. What was happening was this: I wanted to tattoo myself with this week’s parsha, the chapter calling me and my love an “abomination” I wanted to k ..read more

“It’s a gamer novel, basically,” my friend said from the other side of the couch, looking up from her copy of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. She had hardly stopped reading long enough to eat, unable to tear her eyes from the pages. I was dying to know more about the book that had seized her attention. Not being a gamer, I was disappointed by this summary. But when she finished the book a day later, she thrust it into my hands. “This book will wreck you,” she said, “You need to read it. Trust me.”  A week later, I found myself laying on my stomach for an entire Shabbat, laughing and g ..read more

When I look back on plays I’ve seen, what I remember most isn’t usually the feeling of walking out of the theater. But, when thinking about seeing “Indecent” for the first time, that’s what stands out: the quiet reflection, the strangeness of emerging into the crowded New York streets, and the glances I exchanged with other audience members as we left—ones that acknowledged the weight of what we’d all experienced. In that month, July 2017, everyone was talking about “Indecent”. Five years later, I sat in a crowded restaurant with friends, still talking about it. We all knew of a different prod ..read more

Building a Jewish future requires enough imagination to envision one. Last year, inspired by the work of Rabbi Joshua Bolton, from his book’s eponymous poem, “Jewish Futurisms,” New Voices Fellows collaboratively composed their own set of poetical predictions. This year’s fellowship cohort, Miri Verona, Catherine Horowitz, and Layla Rudy (along with New Voices Editor and Fellowship Coordinator Rena Yehuda Newman) continue on this new tradition of seeing into the Jewish future. In 5784, RuPaul will convert to Judaism. In 5785, Sukkot will finally be the most popular Jewish holiday. In 5786, ‘ko ..read more