Women’s Tefillah

Celebrating Our Daughters: From Simchat Bat to Bat Mitzvah

I had been thinking about my eldest daughter’s bat mitzvah for a long time. We belong to a Modern Orthodox ...

Revitalizing Women’s Tefillah Groups

As a Modern Orthodox high school student at Ramaz, I find meaning in women’s tefillah (prayer) services. After experiencing them at ...

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 ...

Why is “Sisterhood” Still Relevant on Today’s College Campuses?

This past weekend, I was involved in an incredibly exhilarating and spiritually uplifting event: Nashir, the intercollegiate Jewish women’s arts ...

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 ...

A Daughter’s Response to “Mincha in the Midwest”

This past Simchat Torah, my mother began planning her synagogue’s first women’s mincha, afternoon service. She was inspired by the ...

Mincha in the Midwest

This past Shabbat as I walked to synagogue for mincha, afternoon services, I was thinking about how I would introduce ...

Hitting a Creative Wall

I didn’t mind the mechitza  at first. The wall—more frequently a short partition—separating men and women in ritual spaces was ...

If Not Now, When? Making Up for Lost Time

As I flick through the pages of my pocket prayer book deliberating over which tunes to pick for Lecha Dodi ...

Reading Esther and Coming of Age

The story of Esther teaches us many things, amongst them, that timing is everything.This year, the women’s Megillat Esther reading ...