Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on January 1, 2013 by Derek Kwait
When it came to picking out a college and a major, Mike knew he wanted to work with numbers and that he wanted to do something practical. So he searched and weighed the available data: He looked into economics but found it boring. He looked into physics, but thought it just wasn’t for him, then Continue Reading »
Posted on December 30, 2012 by David Bogomolny
This week we are starting the sefer (book) of Shemot (Exodus), which literally means ‘names’. The weekly parasha is also called Shemot. I mention this because the first name that comes to my mind when I read this parasha is ‘Isra Yaghoubi’ (Year ’08-’09, Fellows ’09-’10). She was my first Chumash havruta, and she left me Continue Reading »
Posted on December 28, 2012 by Shanee Michaelson
During the summer of 2011, I was a recovering attorney who had just completed a year teaching in Jewish early childhood education. I felt a calling towards deepening my own formal Jewish education and learned at Pardes for 3 weeks. I was exposed to the tip of an iceberg of knowledge of every imaginable sort. Continue Reading »
Posted on September 12, 2012 by Annie Matan Gilbert
I am a returning student this year. I was in the Year Program in 2009-2010. My goal that year was to attain the skills I needed to be accepted into rabbinical school. It was an incredible, eye and heart-opening year that changed my life. When I returned to Toronto, I found my besherte and indeed Continue Reading »
Posted on June 7, 2012 by Barer
Tamar views her Jewish journey as a work in progress, or, as Zvi Hirschfield suggests, that of a Gemara sugiyah. As a child growing up in Los Angeles, she went to Hebrew school three days a week and was ‘that kid’ who loved it. Perhaps Jewish education’s emphasis on modern Hebrew at the time made Continue Reading »
Posted on June 3, 2012 by Derek Kwait
(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim) So this is it. The end. It’s over. After Shabbat, I’m going to see everyone again in the fall at best, never at worst. Still, this is ultimately what I signed up for, to become a Pardes Alum. I’m almost positive that from the moment I touch Continue Reading »
Posted on May 21, 2012 by Barer
Kyle was raised in Berkeley, CA to a father who had rejected his Jesuit upbringing and faith altogether, but remained knowledgeable through his work as a publisher of religious books, and a Jewish mother who did not have a strong traditional upbringing. While Judaism as such did not play a positive, central role in her Continue Reading »
Posted on April 12, 2012 by David Bogomolny
Rob Murstein comes from a ‘very liturgical’ family; they attend Shabbat services every Friday evening, Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon until havdalah. Rob’s father is a regular Torah reader at shul, his brother studied chazzanut with their cantor, and Rob himself read Torah at shul for the first time when he was six years old; and then again at Continue Reading »
Posted on February 21, 2012 by David Bogomolny
“I’m very adamant about a pluralistic model of Jewish practice.” -Stu Jacobs In 5th grade, a teacher inspired Stu Jacobs to explore and gradually start keeping more mitzvot, and throughout his youth the young man strived to connect to and practice a new mitzvah every single year. His teacher had said that ‘he didn’t have Continue Reading »
Posted on January 29, 2012 by David Bogomolny
“What influenced me the most was how my parents acted toward others. Both of them were my role models. Both were black sheep… I like black sheep :)” After escaping from Hungary during the Holocaust, Carolina’s grandparents didn’t affiliate themselves with the Jewish community of Venezuela, and raised their children without much Jewish tradition… so it came as Continue Reading »
