Talmud became a channel for me to develop and express my Jewish feminism.

The length of your hemline doesn’t matter as long as you choose it for yourself and you accept those who choose differently.

I was visiting Brooklyn, New York with a group of students in my Reform synagogue’s confirmation class. 

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

ENFP. Extraversion, intuition, feeling, perception. Four words that, according to the Myers-Briggs personality test, define me as a person.

When I was younger, around the time of my consecration, my vision of God was simple.

For two hours a day, three days a week, the Orthodox rabbi led us through the strict and meticulous process of tefillin-making.

Existing at the border between modern and traditional values often feels like teetering across a balance beam.

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

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

When I was in third grade, my teacher asked me to tell my class about the Jewish New Year.

Like everything we wear, our jewelry displays our tastes and preferences. On a deeper level, though, it also projects our values to the world.

In a passage from Pirkei Avot, Eliezer ben Hurcanus recommended “ayin tovah,” a “good eye” in Hebrew, which, my teacher explained, meant judging people in a favorable light.

I have spent the last year learning that we are all at different places in our Jewish education; we have all had different sets of experiences. And they are all valid.

While at the time I couldn’t admit it to myself, I felt deep down that the world wouldn’t end if I gave up this cause.

I feel as if I won the lottery by being born Jewish, as so many of my most cherished memories and values are inherently tied to this part of my identity. As proud as I am of my Jewish identity, I’ve always been troubled by one of the fundamental ideas in Judaism: that Jews are “the chosen people.”