Dear Friend, I am writing to share important and bittersweet news with you. After fifteen years on staff and nearly eleven years serving as CEO of Mayyim Hayyim, Carrie Bornstein has decided to step down from that role in summer 2023. Since 2006, Carrie has been a pillar of the Mayyim Hayyim community, first as […]
Continue ReadingDecember 2022 / Kislev 5783 Dear friend, A few months after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, I opened my email to find this message: “Mayyim Hayyim will always be a safe place to mark an abortion, whatever the circumstances. Many in our community are righteously angry and ready to fight for our rights.” This blew […]
Continue ReadingBy Grace Sokolow When I was twelve years old, I played soccer year-round, listened obsessively to Bruno Mars, and thought that a three-page paper was a long assignment. The last thing I wanted to do on a Sunday afternoon was something Jewish. Weren’t Hebrew school and Bat Mitzvah tutoring enough? But my Rabbi recommended a […]
Continue ReadingTishrei 5783 / October 2022 Dear friend, My group of friends has a history of going on mikveh adventures. Once it was skinny dipping in a river before Shabbat. Another time it was in a cave in Israel. Most recently, my friend, Moises, invited us to join him at Mayyim Hayyim a few days before […]
Continue ReadingBy Leann Shamash So much of what is written in Parshat Metzora, this week’s Torah portion, concerning blood and emissions still lives on to this day. Who would think that a parsha which details bodily emissions would spur a tradition of mikveh, with water a liquid vehicle to heal and transform? Mayyim Hayyim has taken […]
Continue ReadingWe’re resharing this past blog post about Beyond the Huppah, our program for engaged and recently married couples. Know someone newly engaged or a couple married in the past five years? A new cohort begins December 7. by Annie O. My husband and I were both raised Jewish, and attended Reform and Conservative religious services […]
Continue ReadingSeptember 2021 / Tishrei 5782 Dear friend, It’s been a long, hard pandemic. We asked each other, “What’s the first thing you’ll do once you’re vaccinated?” For me, the first thing I needed to do was immerse at Mayyim Hayyim. Lockdown overlapped with the year of mourning for my beloved Abba, my father. It wasn’t until May of this year that I felt ready to go to Mayyim Hayyim. I went in the water bearing the compounded pain of that […]
Continue ReadingIn November 2004, the Sixth Day Group, a group of thirteen women gathered at Mayyim Hayyim; some were cancer survivors, others were caregivers and health care professionals. They had each wished for a specifically Jewish, spiritual guide to the difficult journey through treatment and its aftermath, and decided to join together and create one. For […]
Continue ReadingOn May 11th, Mayyim Hayyim’s annual benefit, Making History, will celebrate two visionary leaders for making history in our community. Shanna was raised in a secular family in St. Louis and Chicago, where her parents helped establish St. Louis’s Central Reform Congregation. She first learned of mikveh while taking a Jewish studies course in college—coincidentally, […]
Continue ReadingOn May 11th, Mayyim Hayyim’s annual benefit, Making History, will celebrate two visionary leaders for making history in our community. Jonathan Sarna arrived in Boston at the age of ten. His father, Nahum Sarna, was a biblical scholar at Brandeis and his mother, Helen, a librarian and cataloger at Hebrew College. He attended Brandeis, and […]
Continue ReadingBy Dr. Max Klau In the early days after the 2016 election, I made myself a vow to immerse in the mikveh when the time came to mark the end of his administration. In late January 2021—about a week after the inauguration—I made it happen. I spent a good long time floating in the warm […]
Continue Readingby Maiya Edelson When my now husband and I started planning our wedding, we sat down together and talked about the values and priorities we wanted throughout the planning process and the event itself. We spoke about the “feel” of our ceremony and reception, and how we wanted it to be fun and festive and […]
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