I admit, I am woefully late to the party on Supergirl. I tried the pilot episode when it came out last year and found it a little campy and contrived next to my usual superhero and science-fiction fare.

This fall, when we greet family members we have not seen in a long time–especially our female relatives–let us comment not on their physiques, but on their accomplishments at work or school. Let us make a collective effort to refrain from commenting on other people’s food choices when we sit down for dinner.

It is now the time of year when 90% of my conversations with my mother are about what we’re making for Rosh Hashanah dinner. So far I am scheduled to make the challah, rugelach, vegetarian matzoh ball soup, roasted vegetables, and at least one other dessert. Am I ready? Not even a little bit. I’ve opted for a recipe involving a pomegranate glaze and carrots because of their traditional cultural elements and the way their flavors balance each other out. This has a 100% success rate and is delicious, filling, healthy, and holiday-appropriate!

In our current political climate, the First Amendment can sometimes become a catchphrase for those looking for the license to say hateful things under the guise of patriotism. This shallow understanding of the First Amendment excludes the deeper truth behind the freedom of speech: everyone has a right to information, free of censorship or agenda. Jewish First Amendment advocate Judith Krug and libraries around the country, knew in 1982 when Banned Books Week was established that reading stories can empower, uplift, and radically change how people perceive themselves and others.

Women Wage Peace declares: We refuse to live indefinitely by the sword. We vow that we will not be silent, that we will raise our voices above the sounds of weapons and sirens. Violence only breeds more violence and further radicalization, with suffering and insecurity for all sides.

As my first assignment at JWA, I am tackling the legendary but polarizing Rosh Hashanah dessert: Honey Cake.  An informal poll of every Jewish person I spoke to over the course of a week told me that no one likes it. The strongest emotion I’ve felt about honey cake has been a luke-warm “well, sure.” However, for my inaugural blog post, I was determined to create a recipe that incorporated some of the flavors and ingredients of honey cake.

It was a compulsion, a need, a desire so thick that it coated my tongue like halvah; even now, at moments when I least expect it, it creeps up on me and demands my attention, my need for acknowledgement as the pious woman I like to believe I am.     

The 8th International Bet Debora Conference of European Jewish Women, Activists, Academics and Rabbis was not for women like me: those of us born and raised in the US, people whose bat mitzvahs were a given, who grew up with live grandparents and a great-grandmother, who do not have generational gaps on their family tree because of the Shoah. In short, women who haven’t had to fight for their Judaism.

In 2003, when the new head of obstetrics at the University of Chicago decided to close the nurse midwife practice, he said it was due to cost. For me and many other past and present patients...it also felt like yet another attack on women and our access to quality reproductive health. It seemed to communicate that women's comfort, and the personal services midwives provided, weren’t valued as a meaningful aspect of obstetrics.

Yesterday News-PressNow.com published an article by columnist Dave Hon titled, “Why I’ll never date a feminist.” In it Hon argues that feminists hate men, that he doesn’t believe there’s a wage gap or a culture of rape on college campuses, and that “People who are more loyal to their gender and not their significant other don’t make good partners.” Now, Dave, I’m about to tear your article apart.

Historically, August is a wonderful month to be a Jewish woman in the political sphere: Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined the Supreme Court on August 10, 1993, and Elena Kagan also donned the austere black robes on August 5, 2010. In 1971, August 26 was named Women’s Equality Day, thanks to the tireless work of Bella Abzug and other Jewish feminists.

Television’s new Jewish American comedy scene, however, is being taken over by badly-behaved Jewish women like Bloom’s Rebecca, Lena Dunham’s Hannah, and Broad City’s Abbi and Ilana. These are women who take their Zoloft with mimosas and wreak havoc at their workplaces.

It feels safe, and true, to say that Women’s Equality Day exists, in large part, because of the activism of Jewish women. It was Bella Abzug who, as a congresswoman in 1971, proposed that August 26th be designated “Women’s Equality Day.” She did this to commemorate women’s fight for the right to vote and the passing on the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 and the one-year anniversary of the “Women’s Strike for Equality” March, in which 50,000 women marched down the streets of New York City, demanding free childcare, equal access in education and jobs, and the right to safe and legal abortions.

When one exists in opposition to the status quo because of her ethnicity, it feels more natural to also begin to question the significance of gender and other means of social stratification. I am not an average Jew or an average Indian. Why would I try to be an “average” woman, to conform to archaic rules and norms that have nothing to do with me?

The year was 2008, and I was eight years old.

Politics was a grown-up term that I didn’t know much about, other than a few names: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain. Although the real meaning of the election was lost on me, my parents encouraged my brother and me to formulate opinions about the world. However, there was something standing in my way of deciding who to cheer on.

Maybe politicians sacrifice authenticity for popularity, and prophets sacrifice efficacy for moral purity. Maybe politicians choose their paychecks over their values and prophets choose radicalness over relatability. Maybe politicians are too quick to resort to “business as usual.” Maybe prophets are too quick to isolate themselves.