Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on April 4, 2012 by J. Belasco
About a month and a half ago, I went to Hevron for Shabbat with a few Pardesniks to visit a fellow student’s wife’s family. His wife actually grew up in Hevron; and her parents still live there today. I was very grateful for the family’s generosity and hospitality, and for the chance they gave me to experience Continue Reading »
Posted on February 21, 2012 by Barer
Many of us who fall under the label ‘modern liberal Jew’ view women’s role (or lack thereof) in traditional Judaism to be a serious affront to our notions of egalitarianism. ‘How can it be’ we ask, ‘that anyone could live in a Western democracy in the 21st century and subject women to secondary-citizen status in Continue Reading »
Posted on February 4, 2012 by Derek Kwait
(X-posted from my home blog, Yinzer in Yerushalayim) I decided to challenge myself this semester, to fully take advantage of my time here by trying new Jewish things and getting outside my comfort zones. Since every subject of Torah has its own special jargon, world view, sources, legends, authorities, inside jokes, the result has been Continue Reading »
Posted on January 8, 2012 by Derek Kwait
After getting over Hevron, the subject on everyone’s minds and lips all last week was the craziness in Beit Shemesh. I was going to write this blog post with a lot of complaints about how more people aren’t speaking out against this behavior, but since I could have attended the protest and did not, perhaps Continue Reading »
Posted on October 5, 2011 by The Director of Digital Media
An OTZMA particpant shares some thoughts after a visit to Pardes: Greetings, My name is Billie Hirsch and I am a participant of OTZMA 2011-2012, a JFNA initiative offering post-undergraduate students a year in Israel, volunteering in various arenas. I write a blog for Jewish Boston, and recently visited the Pardes Institute on an Continue Reading »
Posted on September 6, 2011 by Avi Strausberg
parshat ki tetse brims with examples where the men make decisions that crucially impact the women, while their opinions are completely absent from the equation. in fact, their voices have been so successfully silenced, that often unless you were looking for them, you might not even notice they were missing in the first Continue Reading »
Posted on July 16, 2011 by Tamara Frankel
Dear Friends, Tonight I am writing to you from my backyard in Toronto. It’s not exactly Jerusalem, but the weather is pleasant as the sun sets and the birds are chirping. Literally. I can’t really tell if I’m ‘acclimatized’ to Toronto – not just in the meteorological sense – but so far, so good. Now Continue Reading »
Posted on July 14, 2011 by Barer
[From my blog] After taking another census of the nation, the first claim for equal rights for women in Jewish history is documented in this week’s parsha when the five daughters of Tzlophchad, a man who left Egypt with the Israelites but has since been killed for sinning, petition Moshe and the entire congregation to Continue Reading »
Posted on July 10, 2011 by Mary Brett Koplen
Mary Brett Koplen, Pardes Summer learner, shares her Rosh Chodesh experience with Women of the Wall. For more of Mary Brett’s writing or to see her original post, visit her website: Where the Gnome Goes (A Traveling Blog). At 6:15am, I am showered and partially coffeed. I stand on a Jerusalem street corner with my Continue Reading »
Posted on May 19, 2011 by The Director of Digital Media
A Testimonial by Avigail Hurvitz-Prinz About a month ago my Talmud class did an exercise where we shared our reasons for studying Gemora. Everyone had their own reasons, and my list came up to a total of 21 reasons as wide ranging as “intellectual challenge” and “to have a sense of the Rabbinic world” or Continue Reading »