“Open,” don’t close the conversation on Israel

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Over the past year my passion for Israel and my interest in the Middle East has taken a sharp decline. My political conversations in the past frequently centered this issue but I have taken a step away from the topic. Perhaps it is because I feel hopeless in the future of the region or maybe I have simply found other issues that I feel more powerful working on. Something snapped recently though, I was pulled in once again as into the spotlight comes a dispute between Swarthmore Hillel and Hillel International over what perspectives on Israel-Palestine are welcomed in Hillel institutions. Continue Reading

Gets, goats and Jewish divorce

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In the winter before my first husband and I divorced, I applied to the Jerome Foundationfor a travel-study grant that involved going to the Arctic town of Resolute. I was writing a play set in the Arctic and discovered Resolute through a conversation with Paul Schurke, who had been part of a North Pole expedition with explorers Will Steger and Ann Bancroft. Paul thought I would learn a lot by going to a place where winter stripped away all pretense of the civilized world. Continue Reading

Anti-Marriage vote: A year later

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It’s a year today since we voted on the anti-marriage amendment. This time last year we were at a stopping point in a long, difficult, involuntary journey. It was a nervous 18 months, leading up to a horribly scary day. Continue Reading

The state of my (interfaith) union

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Leora has been asking me for a long time to start writing about interfaith parenting and family issues. This piece is the beginning of what I hope will be a regular column. Sometimes it’ll be light-hearted and other times more serious, but I wanted to start here, with why I think it matters that we talk about it. Continue Reading

Three talks kick off new Jewish Studies season

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Israeli documentaries, Russian-Jewish photography from the early twentieth-century, and Yiddish radio – these are a just a few of the topics that will be covered in this year’s Community Lecture Series, presented by the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Minnesota. The series is celebrating its tenth year, and will kick off the season with three exciting programs in October. Continue Reading