by Ren Finkel, Emergent Programs Coordinator This time next week, SVARA’s daily drop-in Mishnah Collective will be completing its exploration of Pirkei Avot. I began coordinating the Mishnah Collective in August 2020, and when I started I had no idea just how much this program would change me. It has been an ongoing space of […]

by Rabbi Mónica Gomery, SVARA Faculty A story is recounted in Yevamot 121a of Raban Gamliel on a boat. From a distance, Raban Gamliel sees another boat, shattered. A shipwreck. Knowing somehow that his colleague and friend Rabbi Akiva had been traveling on that boat, Raban Gamliel grieves for the wise and prolific Rabbi Akiva. […]

by Elaina Marshalek, Director of Programs When I play piano, nothing feels more grounding than playing classical music. I imagine it has something to do with reading sheet music, where the notes and the instructions of how to play always stay the same. The notes on the page create a solid and stable container for […]

by Maggid Jhos Singer, SVARA Fellow My colleague, mentor, teacher, and most of all my friend, Rachel Brodie, died suddenly and unexpectedly in April. Rachel profoundly impacted the people who knew her. I had the honor and responsibility of delivering the hesped (“eulogy”) at her funeral. While I sought to comfort the hundreds of folks […]

by Rabbi Becky Silverstein, SVARA Faculty and Co-Director of the Trans Halakha Project The Torah serves as the backbone of Jewish life, laying out a communal origin story and providing the foundation of Jewish religious practice. Even if the Torah was only read on shabbatot and chagim (holidays) or studied as an abstract text, there […]

by Rabbi Lauren Tuchman, SVARA Fellow It is hard, nay impossible, to adequately capture the feelings that came over me when I learned about the passing of a dear friend: the fierce and unapologetic activist for disability justice and lover of Torah, Sheryl Grossman. May her memory be a blessing. I dedicate my learning today […]

by Ayana Morse, Executive Director Back in the fall, I found myself on the sidelines of baseball training for my oldest kiddo. The head coach in the league was attempting to corral a group of energetic 9-11-year-olds into a circle. He was yelling at them to come together, to listen to each other, and work […]

by R’ Elliot Kukla, SVAVA Faculty When my grandma Lily was dying, she traveled through time back to her childhood. Lily survived the Holocaust, as well as years of hiding, fleeing, loss, illness, pain, and relocation in mid-life. The grandmother I knew in old age was stiffened by scar tissue. She struggled with my trans […]

by R’ Melanie Levav, SVAVA Board Member Between the war in Ukraine, anti-trans legislation in Texas, the end of mask mandates that protected our most vulnerable, “don’t say gay” to a young kid in Florida, and God only knows what else, it feels like once again, the world has literally turned upside down.  In Russia, […]

by Elaina Marshalek, Director of Programs This week (and in countless weeks before), I watched people who hold tremendous power do tremendously terrible things. With heinous anti-trans and anti-queer legislation proliferating in the United States – alongside the wars in Ukraine and around the world – I see my comrades cycling through hopelessness, calls to […]