Jewish History

Content type
Collection
Jewish Women of Color Marching

Top Ten Moments for Jewish Women in 2019

Judith Rosenbaum

JWA CEO Judith Rosenbaum lists her top ten moments for Jewish women in 2019.

Topics: Jewish History
Photograph of Persian Jewish man, sepia tone.

Airport Insecurity

Sasha Azizi Rosenfeld

Everything about me screamed American Ashkenazi Jew except the middle name on my passport.

Topics: Family, Israel
High school student standing in front of a brick wall. She is holding a protest sign that says "To forget a Holocaust is to be killed twice," attributed to Elie Wiesel.

On Emancipation Avenue

Madeline Canfield

My friend wanted to get arrested, one morning in July, on the curb of the sidewalk along a street east of downtown Houston.

Ilana Drake standing in a passageway on the Bell Tower of St. Paul's Church, Munich cityscape below.

Raising My Hand High

Ilana Drake

The teacher told us to raise our hands if we were Jewish. I didn’t know what to do.

Mezuzah mounted on wooden door frame. Scroll visible, in a test tube-like vial corked on light blue wood decorated with pomegranates and Star of Davids.

My Matriarchal Mezuzah

Eleanor Harris

Inhaling the sweet scents of Nachalat Binyamin in Tel Aviv, I searched for the perfect new mezuzah. 

Topics: Family, Israel, Ritual
A woman with curly hair

Just a Small-Town Curl

Jennifer Greenberg

I have always struggled to accept my curls.

Topics: Jewish History
Memorial outside Tree of Life Synagogue

How to Heal: The One-Year Anniversary of Pittsburgh

Ilana Diamant

This essay is for anyone who froze—whose mind went inward instead of outward, who didn’t leave their home for a bit, or who didn’t want to go home at all.

Topics: Antisemitism
Two women wearing tallit are moving away from the wall, a police officer looking at them and speaking to them. Another woman films the event on her phone.

The Wall Between My Identities

Sasha Azizi Rosenfeld

I expected to feel emotion and attachment to the Kotel. However, despite the burning midday sun, my first visit left me cold.

Three figures, arms over shoulders, walking on a paved road. Guard towers lined alongside them.

Prayers in Majdanek

Isabel Hoffman

Last March, as I prepared to visit Holocaust sites as part of my high school semester in Israel, I braced myself.

Topics: Holocaust, Prayer
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

If I Am Not for Myself, Who Will be For Me?

Hannah Kornblut

White Jews benefit from the system of white supremacy, and are often complicit, until their Jewish identity is revealed. 

Yiddish Motifs

Yiddishes, Alive and Dead

Sophie Hurwitz

For many American Jews, Yiddish is the language of a mythicized shtetl, but today the language is still very much alive.

Topics: Jewish History
Silwan

Revisiting Israel

Elana Moscovitch

Elana Moscovitch revisits Israel after living there as a child and makes new discoveries through her daughter's eyes.

Topics: Israel, Palestine
Jewish Partisans in Poland

Zog Nit Keynmol: The Songs of Jewish Partisans

Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler

Jewish partisans are far more compelling than any revenge fantasy cooked up by Quentin Tarantino because they were real.

Auschwitz

A New Take on the Holocaust Experience

Lily Drazin

In reading Ozick’s thoughtful insight about the double victimization women faced during World War II, I realized that my Holocaust education was indeed lacking.

Topics: Holocaust
Boer women and children in a British concentration camp during the Boer war

A Concentration Camp By Any Other Name

Roz Tromley

A concentration camp by any other name is still a concentration camp.

Episode 16: Women Wage Peace (Transcript)

Episode 16: Women Wage Peace (Transcript)

Susan Sontag Mural

A Visit to the Tucson Jewish History Museum

Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler

Visiting a Holocaust Museum as a Jew can be meaningful, painful, and sometimes, exposing.

Topics: Jewish History
Zioness at the D.C. Dyke March

Lessons from the D.C. Dyke March

Sophie Hurwitz

What can we learn from the debate about Jewish and Israeli symbols at Pride?

Episode 32: Silence Helps Others Forget

Host Nahanni Rous talks to Holocaust survivor and author, Irene Butter. Like Anne Frank's family, Butter’s fled Nazi Germany, settled in Amsterdam, and was eventually deported to concentration camps. Irene knew Anne Frank, and saw her at Bergen-Belsen just before Anne died. She tells us why she began sharing her story after more than four decades of silence, and how she sees her experience reflected in the current era of xenophobia and rising antisemitism.

Episode 13: Borders of Love (Transcript)

Episode 13: Borders of Love (Transcript)

Episode 30: Women in Israeli Politics: An Election Primer

On April 9, Israeli voters head to the polls. In this chaotic and potentially momentous election, the headlines are mostly focused on political maneuvering and corruption scandals in the top-ranks of the male-dominated political parties. But in this election, more Israeli women are running for Knesset than ever before, and they’re speaking out about women’s issues. Is anyone listening? In this special episode of Can We Talk, journalist Linda Gradstein brings us this report on where women candidates from a range of political parties stand in the upcoming Israeli elections. She speaks with feminist activist and writer Elana Sztokman and some of the candidates themselves.

"Jewish Feminisms/American Visions" Conference Poster

Seven Lessons from our Feminist Foremothers

Judith Rosenbaum

JWA’s Executive Director Judith Rosenbaum reflects on her experience at the “Jewish Feminisms/American Visions” conference at the University of Michigan.

Fallen "Israel" Sign, New Orleans, Louisiana, May 9, 2006

Writing on the Walls

Yana Kozukhin

NYU’s Birthright trip did not give me answers. If anything, it only gave me more questions. And for that, I am grateful.

Topics: Israel, Palestine
Broad City Lost and Found

The Eight Best Jewish Quotes from Broad City’s “Lost and Found”

Larisa Klebe

A curated list of the eight best Jewish quotes from Season 5, Episode 6 of Broad City.

Forest Dark Book Cover

Review: Nicole Krauss's "Forest Dark"

Justine Orlovsky-Schnitzler

Forest Dark is an exploration of what happens when the relationships, material objects, and geographic locations that have come to constitute an identity fall apart.

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