Jewish Education

Content type
Collection
Carol and Lucy Targum
May 6, 2025

L’dor Vador: A Legacy of Love

Carol Targum

A grandmother reflects on the joy, responsibility, and sacred beauty of nurturing Jewish identity across generations.

Topics: Spirituality and Religious Life, Ritual, Jewish Education
Stella Moussa Salmon and Sephardi House Fellows - faces
April 29, 2025

How Sephardi House Became My Sephardi Home

Stella Moussa Salmon

The Sephardi House Fellowship offered more than community—it gave me a voice and a mission.

Topics: Antisemitism, Jewish Education
Canoeing at Camp Bechol Lashon
March 20, 2025

Creating Belonging for Black Jews

Shoshana McKinney Kirya-Ziraba

Institutions created by and for Jews of color are fostering community, resilience, and belonging in ways that mainstream Jewish spaces often fail to.

Topics: Civil Rights, Summer Camps, Jewish Education, Synagogues/Temples
"An Unfinished Symphony," art piece by Judy Robkin
January 30, 2025

The Power of Visual Storytelling

Jen Richler

JWA chats with Barbara Rosenblit and Sheila Miller, the creators of Artful Disclosure, a program that honors the ordinary and extraordinary lives of Jewish women through visual storytelling. 

Topics: Crafts, Feminism, Jewish Education
Girls who were part of first transport of Jews to Auschwitz
January 23, 2025

Q & A with Heather Dune Macadam, Director of "999: The Forgotten Girls"

Jen Richler

JWA talks with Heather Dune Macadam, director of 999: The Forgotten Girls, a new documentary that tells the story of the young women who made up the first transport of Jews to Auschwitz.

Topics: Holocaust, Film, Jewish Education
black and white photograph of a woman with short dark hair wearing a checked dress

Judith Lax

Dr. Judith H. Lax (1924-2022) was a trailblazing lay leader in the Conservative movement. In 1971 Lax became the first female president of a Conservative congregation. She went on to hold numerous positions in the United Synagogue of America that were previously held exclusively by men. Through her many firsts, Lax quietly laid the groundwork for women’s equality and helped change the face of Conservative Judaism. 

Headshot of Rabbi Analía Bortz

Analía Bortz

Analía Bortz is the first Latin American woman ordained as a Conservative rabbi. Her approach to spirituality and religion combines with her medical training. As a doctor specializing in bioethics, she has also helped women and couples with fertility issues. 

Angèle Guéron

Angèle Guéron was an educator in Edirne, once an important city in the late Ottoman Empire, now a border town in northwestern Turkey. The eloquent journal she kept during the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) provides a rare glimpse of life in a besieged Ottoman city and the struggles of a Sephardi Jewish woman against a conservative communal patriarchy. 

Collage for Ladino podcast episode

Episode 111: Ladino Makes a Comeback

Listen Now

Segun el tiempo, se abolta la vela. That’s a Ladino saying that means, “According to the weather, shift your sail.” And it's an apt way of describing Ladino's recent comeback. Ladino—or Judeo-Spanish—the language spoken by Sephardic Jews in Turkey, Greece and North Africa, saw a major decline after the Holocaust destroyed communities of native speakers. But like a sailboat shifting course when the wind changes direction, Ladino has adapted to the times. In this episode of Can We Talk, you’ll hear how from Naomi Spector and Nesi Altaras, two Ladino enthusiasts, and from Hannah Pressman, one of the people spearheading Ladino’s resurgence.

Rose Clubok cropped
May 14, 2024

Where Are They Now? RVF Alum Rose Clubok

Sarah Biskowitz

JWA talks to Rising Voices Fellowship alum Rose Clubok for our series marking the 10th anniversary of the fellowship.

Topics: Non-Fiction, Ritual, Feminism, Jewish Education
Shahanna McKinney-Baldon and Michal Avera Samuel
April 16, 2024

A Curriculum That Celebrates Jewish Diversity

Shoshana McKinney Kirya-Ziraba

The project's creators hope it will change the way Jewish kids see themselves and each other. 

Topics: Jewish Education, Children
Image from JIMENA Sephardi and Mizrahi Toolkit
March 21, 2024

JIMENA's New Sephardi and Mizrahi Education Toolkit

Lizzy Danon

JWA talks to Sarah Levin, executive director for Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and North Africa (JIMENA) about its new Sephardi and Mizrahi Education Toolkit. 

Topics: Holocaust, World War II, Jewish Education
Headshot of Emma Mair with shoulder-length light brown hair and tortoiseshell glasses, posing in front of trees
February 29, 2024

Where Are They Now? RVF Alum Emma Mair

Sarah Biskowitz

JWA talks to Rising Voices Fellowship alum Emma Mair for our series marking the 10th anniversary of the fellowship.

Topics: Non-Fiction, Feminism, Jewish Education
Elsie Simonofsky Chomsky’s Teacher’s Institute class of 1922

Elsie Chomsky

Elsie Chomsky, one of the many young Jewish educators influenced by reformer Samson Benderly, taught Modern Hebrew and organized arts activities for many years at Gratz College in Philadelphia. She trained and supervised student teachers who taught in local Reform and Conservative Hebrew schools.  

Red and orange Hebrew letters on yellow background
April 19, 2023

The Future of Gendered Hebrew

Sam Mezrich

Grammatical gender in Hebrew fosters a culture of exclusion and denies people safety and belonging in our religious spaces. It's time for that to change. 

Topics: Ritual, Jewish Education
Black line drawings of moon and stars on a background of red and pink waves
April 14, 2023

Bringing Jewish Feminism to Youth Programming

Miriam Stodolsky

We need programs that integrate vibrant Jewish feminism into all youth spaces.

 

Topics: Jewish Education, Summer Camps, Feminism
Collage of Miriam Ezagui over drawing of smartphone and hand on green background
March 15, 2023

Finding Jewish Empowerment on TikTok

Rosie Yanowitch

After Kanye West's latest antisemitic spiral, I searched Tiktok, hoping to seek solitude and comfort in Jewish creators succeeding at sharing their Jewish identity in ways that felt authentic, candid, and personal.

Topics: Jewish Education, Judaism-Orthodox, Media
Shoshana Shoubin Cardin

Shoshana Shoubin Cardin

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Elaine Eff interviewed Shoshana Shoubin Cardin on August 30, September 4, September 7, and October 3, 2001, in Baltimore, Maryland, as part of the Weaving Women's Words Oral History Project. Cardin shares her journey as an immigrant to the United States, her experiences growing up in Baltimore, her education, marriage, and the challenges and changes in the Jewish community, as well as her lifelong commitment to volunteerism and philanthropy.

Holocaust Remembrance Candle
January 26, 2023

What Does Good Holocaust Education Look Like?

Elana Moscovitch

Teaching kids about the Holocaust should inspire them to fight injustice and change the world.

Topics: Holocaust, Feminism, Jewish Education, Non-Fiction
Vanessa Kroll Bennett Headshot 2022

Episode 85: Teens and Mental Health in the (Post)Pandemic

Listen Now

Teens were already struggling before COVID. When the pandemic hit, things just got worse. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we speak with Vanessa Kroll Bennett, co-host of The Puberty Podcast, parenting writer, and mother of four, about teens and mental health—before, during, and after the pandemic—gender differences, and what caregivers and Jewish communities can do to help. We also hear directly from teens about how the pandemic affected them and how they're doing now. 

Meta R. Buttnick

Meta R. Kaplan Buttnick

Project
Weaving Women's Words

Pamela Lavitt Brown interviewed Meta R. Buttnick on May 31, June 20, and July 17, 2001, in Seattle, Washington, as part of the Weaving Women’s Words Oral History Project. Meta, born in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1913, discusses her upbringing, education, marriage, and lifelong commitment to preserving Jewish history in Seattle through oral histories and archival projects.

Collage of Stars of David and pens on dark blue background
November 21, 2022

We Need Better Holocaust Education

Sam Mezrich

If non-Jews had more understanding of what our people went through, it would take a lot of emotional labor off the shoulders of Jewish kids.

Topics: Holocaust, Jewish Education, Schools
Photographs of Torah, a book of commentary, and Shabbat candles collaged on patterned orange background.
October 14, 2022

Imagining Feminist Torah Commentary For Everyone

Miriam Stodolsky

For the past year, I’ve been reading the parasha each week. It's been fascinating, meaningful— and incredibly exasperating.

Topics: Midrash and Aggadah, Feminism, Jewish Education
Outlined drawings of city skyline, old synagogue, girl writing, and other doodles on red background
October 12, 2022

Confronting the Mechitza in Hamburg

Adina Gerwin

At the Hamburg synagogue, I found myself in a place literally built to go against the foundational egalitarian principles my Judaism had always been about.

Topics: Rosh Hashanah, Synagogues/Temples, Jewish Education
June Salander

June Salander

Project
DAVAR: Vermont Jewish Women's History Project

Ann Zinn Buffum and Sandra Stillman Gartner interviewed June Salander on June 29, 2005, in Rutland, Vermont, as part of DAVAR’s Vermont Jewish Women’s Oral History Project. Salander recalls her immigration to the United States from Poland as a young girl, settling in Harlem, attending Hebrew School, and her active life as a Red Cross volunteer, Hebrew School teacher, real estate broker, and baker, culminating in her Bat Mitzvah at age 89.

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