I remember the crackling sound of late nineties alt-rock and the stench of roller-rink pizza like it was just yesterday.

I felt overwhelmed when deciding what to do for a bat mitzvah project.

Fifty years ago yesterday, the 1961 formation of Women Strike for Peace (WSP) marked a new era for activism, creating a new stage on which women could concentrate their power. In 1984, WSP described in their own words the beginning of their movement: "100,000 women from 60 cities came out of kitchens and jobs to demand: END THE ARMS RACE - NOT THE HUMAN RACE, and WSP was born."

I want to give a shout out to Lesléa Newman, an iconic yet under-recognized gay Jewish writer whose work continues to inform the changing landscape of GLBT rights in the U.S.

This week marks a big one when it comes to major anniversaries of Jewish women in politics.

As part of Yeshiva University Museum’s “Graphic Details – Confessional Comics by Jewish Women” event, I attended the October 24th “Close and Personal: Jewish Women Artists and Their Graphic Diaries” panel at the Center for Jewish History, which featured authors from the exhibition in dialogue about the confessional nature of comic book art. The panelists come from distinct backgrounds: Lauren Weinstein is the lead singer of a metaphysical rock band; Miss Lasko-Gross is creating an iPhone app about religious fundamentalism; Ariel Schrag is a lesbian screenwriter for HBO and Showtime series; and Miriam Katin is a holocaust survivor. Yet these women share a commonality: they are comic book creators with semi-autobiographical stories about coming of age as a Jewish woman.

The Jewish community has had a varied relationship with scouting.

I've never thought of myself as a particularly good dancer. I dropped out of ballet after one lesson and these days I only feel comfortable on the dance floor after a couple of drinks.

As far as underrated vegetables go, cabbage is near the top of the list. People generally don't rhapsodize over cabbage like they do for fresh sweet corn or a juicy red tomato.

Kristen Gwinn, Wendy Chmielewski, and Jill Norgren, students of women's history, had a goal: To explore whether women ran for elective office in substantial numbers before ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. Thanks to their work, we now know THEY DID. The fruits of their research are now available in a database on a new, free website: www.herhatwasinthering.org.

If we are to judge what is Jewish by what Jews do (or don't do), we might conclude this week that Jews apparently welcome the New Year with apples, honey, and signs about where women should stand.

The iconic anarchist Emma Goldman believed that religion was inherently repressive.

Anyone who knows me would have been surprised to see me walking down Mass Ave in Cambridge the other night and into a hip club on the edge of the M.I.T.campus. What was I doing there?

For most of us, the break fast meal following Yom Kippur evokes images of bagels and cream cheese, coffee cake, blintzes and noodle kugel.

For a few semesters in college, I was a Peer Health Sex Educator.

Even before Rosh Hashanah was over this year, my mind turned to what I should make for Yom Kippur.