Asking for Help

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by DeDe Jacobs-Komisar, Development Manager There’s a voice in my head that has always equated asking for help with admitting defeat. Call it impatience or ego, but I prefer to barrel ahead with a task myself and hope for the best than wait for support or feedback. As you can imagine, this strategy has serious drawbacks. While it’s helped […]

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A Community of Belonging

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Welcome to the Last Installment of our October Blog Series, From Rachel Hillman, Guest Editor October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a month where the media highlights breast cancer, research for treatment and, one day, a cure. During October, many women and men share their stories about how breast cancer impacted them or their family. Last year, after being […]

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Why I Don't Call Myself a Survivor

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Welcome to Our October Blog Series, From Rachel Hillman, Guest Editor October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a month where the media highlights breast cancer, research for treatment and, one day, a cure. During October, many women and men share their stories about how breast cancer impacted them or their family. Last year, after being diagnosed with breast cancer […]

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A Year Since the Hidden Cameras at the Mikveh… Has Anything Changed?

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by Carrie Bornstein, Executive Director Originally posted on the Times of Israel Blog  It’s been one year since Rabbi Barry Freundel was discovered to be spying on women as they prepared to immerse in the mikveh in Washington, DC. Since that time news reporters, rabbis, and individuals all over the world have placed significant attention […]

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Separation

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Welcome to Our October Blog Series, From Rachel Hillman, Guest Editor October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a month where the media highlights breast cancer, research for treatment and, one day, a cure. During October, many women and men share their stories about how breast cancer impacted them or their family. Last year, after being diagnosed with breast cancer […]

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History for the Holidays

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by Walt Clark, Office Manager Wow. Last month was insane. We had 233 immersions in the month of September. That is the most we have ever had. In any month. Ever! We have been on track to have more immersions this year than past years, but this was something different. Many people came to immerse before the high […]

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Sukkot and the Fragility of Our Lives

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Welcome to Our October Blog Series, From Rachel Hillman, Guest Editor October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a month where the media highlights breast cancer, research for treatment and, one day, a cure. During October, many women and men share their stories about how breast cancer impacted them or their family. Last year, after being diagnosed with breast cancer […]

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Holy Days

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by DeDe Jacobs-Komisar, Development Manager We’re now in the days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, aka Where Things Start Getting Real. If you have reflection and repentance on your mind, the whole process supposedly begins back at the start of Elul – the Jewish month preceding the High Holidays. We blow the shofar every […]

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Dear Clergy: Thank You

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by Lisa Berman, Mikveh and Education Director Summer, yet very nearly fall. Tomatoes and basil replaced by apples and honey. Cut-grass and pinot grigio segue into damp leaves, nutmeg, and zinfandel. Barbecues morph into holiday dinners. The filled up buckets of summer possibilities have been overturned and stored away and we search for that great […]

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Theatre Meets Prayer: Embodied Justice for Yom Kippur

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by Bronwen Mullen When I formally began studying Theatre of the Oppressed at Sarah Lawrence College, the words of founder Augusto Boal resonated deeply: “Theatre is a rehearsal for life!”; “The most dangerous weapon theatre possesses is empathy!”; “Theatre is change! It is becoming, not being!” These words more than resonated. I felt these words […]

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An Unconventional Bar Mitzvah: Every Child Deserves to be Celebrated

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by Susan Arndt It’s hard to believe we just celebrated my son’s Bar Mitzvah.  Zachary was born a beautiful healthy baby, but at the age of sixteen months, he started having seizures.  Over the years, with all of the challenges he has faced being non-verbal and having developmental delays, I have always looked for ways of […]

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