Musings from Students of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem
Posted on May 28, 2014 by Naomi Bilmes
From my blog: One of my close friends recently told me that I will forever be in her heart as her “mechitza-going-skirt-wearing-early-morning partner in crime Judaism.” This epigraph described our year at Pardes perfectly: we were two of the three women who regularly attended mechitza minyan; we wore skirts on a daily basis (and even Continue Reading »
Posted on February 16, 2014 by Avi Benson-Goldberg
1. WAIT, YOU’RE GAY? I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED! Probably I don’t get this as much as I feel like I do, but hey, we are all humans and so sometimes I go to work in my normal pants and sometimes I go to work in my garish neon-rainbow-flag leather tuchus-less chaps! This is really Continue Reading »
Posted on January 23, 2014 by Emet Ozar
From our blog: How many times have I been asked “ben o bat?” (boy or girl) in Israel? How many times have I been stopped trying to enter the women’s side of the Kotel? Maybe I should explain first off that I’m genderqueer. I have a female body, but don’t identify with femininity at all. Continue Reading »
Posted on January 23, 2014 by Jessica Baverman
From my blog: As a resident of a country whose primary language isn’t my own and where the health system is very different, I often have challenges when needing to get things done. Seeing a doctor that speaks English is so amazing, you have no idea. We completely take it for granted in the US Continue Reading »
Posted on January 19, 2014 by Ben Schneider
From my blog: I’ve been learning a lot about traditional Jewish marriage this semester. In Gemara classes on tractates Kiddushin and Ketubot, we’ve been talking about how a man betroths a woman and what the language of the Ketubah indicates about their rights and obligations. There are also more esoteric topics: A man can encourage Continue Reading »
Posted on November 7, 2013 by Elana Shilling
I don’t really know what happens when two men fight, having never been a man and thus never had a man fight. But alas! After painstaking research via observation of the male species, surveying video clips on the popular site YouTube, and absorbing pop culture, I have managed to create what I believe to be Continue Reading »
Posted on September 19, 2013 by Ben Schneider
From: my blog The strangest prayer in the siddur is printed with Birkat Kohanim, the section of the repetition of the amidah in which the descendants of the priestly class bless the congregation. As they say their blessing, the siddur instructs one to speedily say this prayer (Koren translation): Master of the Universe, I am Continue Reading »
Posted on September 9, 2013 by Avi Benson-Goldberg
From my blog: This summer, I tried to teach Judaics to 15 year olds for 8 weeks. It was probably a failed mission from the beginning, because the last thing any 15 year old wants to do is spend an hour inside with a 24 year old authority figure, even as patently cool and with-it Continue Reading »
Posted on June 13, 2013 by Andrea Wiese
From my blog: The sunset this evening brought an end to my thirty days of wearing tzitzit. Like any Jewish ritual/mitzvah that I have taken on, I started out by “trying it out.” So I thought this was a good approach to wearing tzitzit also. Thirty days, why not? They say that is how long Continue Reading »
Posted on June 3, 2013 by Ari Abelman
From my blog: It’s hard to believe, but my time in Israel is almost done. Two days from now, I’ll be in the air on my way home. And while I haven’t been the best about blogging here regularly, at the moment I feel like a little bit of reflection is in order. I’m going Continue Reading »
