Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on July 30, 2019 by Tamy Jacobs
Imagine sitting in the shade on a Saturday morning. There’s a bit of a breeze. We just finished davvening (praying) and had a snack. It’s our final Pardes Shabbaton. We are in Tavor Alon at a retreat center. Everyone is relaxed and happy. We’ve broken into small groups to reflect back on the past year. Continue Reading »
Posted on February 24, 2019 by Alana Dakin
120 years after Theodore Herzl stepped foot in Eretz Israel for the first time, a group of yeshiva students makes its way slowly through the countryside just outside of Zikhron Ya’akov, one of the first Zionist settlements established in the land of Israel. Our boots are heavy with mud formed after an early spring rain Continue Reading »
Posted on December 27, 2018 by Branden Charles Johnson
Before moving to Israel in June 2017, I had never set foot in the Holy Land. I finished my conversion to Judaism in October 2015, when I was already too old to participate in a Taglit/Birthright trip. After I was accepted to the 2017 summer intensive program at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem, I knew Continue Reading »
Posted on August 15, 2016 by Tara Zafft
This blog was originally posted on the author’s personal blog, at https://tarazafft.com/blog/ I came to Israel with a long list of goals. I wanted to be in Eretz Israel, a land I felt a deep connection to. I wanted to understand the nation, the culture, the politics. I wanted to learn Hebrew, Torah, and Talmud. I Continue Reading »
Posted on August 11, 2016 by Erika Davis
This was originally posted on the author’s blog, Black, Gay and Jewish: A gay black woman’s discovery of her Jewish self. I’m not sure if it’s purposeful, but after two weeks of study it’s nice to see ways in which the classes that I’m taking overlap with one another. Scribal Arts, a sort of elective, Continue Reading »
Posted on August 10, 2016 by Lucas Espinosa Menendez
I don’t need for now to go and see the other side of the wall. Not of this wall that we hold sacred, both as a holy place and as a memorial, that is full of grass, bushes and roots sprouting freely, where birds nest and sing. I am talking about that “other wall,” the Continue Reading »
Posted on August 1, 2016 by Miriam BenSander
Imagine my family – a Jewish family, a respected family in FSU Moscow in 1983 … When I was an adolescent my parents decided to return to our Jewish roots and begin to observe traditions again – in a time when that was dangerous. They studied for themselves and tried to teach us, their children – Continue Reading »
Posted on July 28, 2016 by Rachel Bikofsky
I was marching with friends, caught up in the music and dancing, and awed by the displays of courage and strength that surged around me. Suddenly, police officers started running by us, and we heard sirens as the crowd hurried to get out of the road so an ambulance could drive through. Within seconds, everyone Continue Reading »
Posted on June 23, 2016 by Sarah Marx
This blogpost was originally published on the author’s personal blog, Ramblin’ Maidel. Inspired by Jerusalem, as always, and its characters, and its millennia of liturgical music. The Electrician’s Psalm Unhemmed Creator, spinner of the world, Today beneath Your power lines a man Crouched down, his battered palms burnished like leather, His skin limp with the Continue Reading »
Posted on March 16, 2016 by Celeste Aronoff
This blog has been cross-posted from the blogs on The Times of Israel. The hardest part about making aliyah so far (and I know it can get a lot harder) is that I’m used to being a really, really competent adult. And suddenly, I’m not. All the cultural competency I’ve amassed, all the nuances and subtleties Continue Reading »
