women reading Torah
Opening the Gates of Prayer
The women wore a variety of costumes, from Disney princesses to Queen Esther herself. Listening to them read the Megillah ...
Partnership Minyans and Women’s Aliyot: A Maturing Conversation
Proponents and opponents of Partnership Minyans have jointly fostered a single narrative. In that narrative, the only relevant technical halakhic ...
Our Bat Mitzvah Celebration With The Community
We live in a provincial community in the UK and like in many provincial communities, attitudes towards women’s involvement in ...
Contextualizing the Conversation about Women’s Aliyot in the Orthodox Community
Women receiving aliyot (being called to the Torah) in Orthodox synagogues is a relatively new phenomenon. Its most prominent proponents are ...
A Heralded Compromise That STILL Leaves Out Women
I’m one of those hard-to-categorize Jews, caught somewhere between the Conservative and Orthodox denominations. My practice leans Orthodox, my passion ...
My First Aliyah – at 70
On Shabbat Noach (the Shabbat when Parshat Noah was read) I marked my 70th birthday by reciting haftarah at the Hendon ...
Three Generations of Female Torah Readers
Three females — a 63-year-old, a 41-year-old, and an 11-year-old — have much in common. In addition to their blond, ...
Making Up for a Skipped Bat Mitzvah
Last month, my daughter celebrated her Bat Mitzvah. In the months before her Bat Mitzvah we moved from the Boston-area ...
Torah for One. Torah for All.
Two years ago a number of parents in my community approached me for assistance. Their daughters would all become b’not ...
Leyning In
Two summers ago I was having a relaxed conversation with Judy Heicklen, the president of JOFA. She mentioned to me ...