by Laura Conrad Mandel Life isn’t about stuff, it’s about experiences. Between baby showers and wedding showers, adoptions and graduations, I find myself constantly in need of gifts for friends and family who tend to have just about all the stuff they need, and for whom I know that something off a registry doesn’t typically […]
Continue ReadingBy Carrie Bornstein, Executive Director People often ask us, “Is there anything like Mayyim Hayyim in Israel?” We certainly let them know about Mikveh Sh’maya, run by Rabbi Haviva Ner-David at Kibbutz Hannaton, and the innovative work happening at the Eden Center in Jerusalem, led by Naomi Marmon-Grumet. Outside of that, however, the mikveh scene is somewhat […]
Continue Readingby Janine Herrera To understand why my immersion at Mayyim Hayyim was so transformative, one would first need to understand the journey I’ve been on. I made the decision to convert because the synagogue and community I belong to was inclusive, open, and committed to accepting everyone. They unabashedly embraced me as part of their community. […]
Continue Readingby Karen Suzukamo My Story In 1984 my husband and I had a plan. We’d move to Minnesota for exciting jobs, work hard, explore the area, and then move back to the west coast. The thirty years since then made us into Minnesotans and taught us a thing or two about the possibilities and the […]
Continue Readingby Rachel Eisen, Director of Annual Giving Let me tell you a little secret of mine. I actually hate getting in the water. I’m not a fan of summer, in part because I’d rather be cold than hot, but also because I hate swimming. I can’t remember if I liked it as a kid or […]
Continue Readingby Yasmine Moideen “A donde?” “Por la calle y la Calle trece.” My friends and I entered the dented, sky-blue, 1954 Bel Aire landing on creaky seats, shutting the doors harder than we should have. We were in Havana, Cuba on a trip with our synagogue. It was nearing Shabbat, around 6:30 pm. That day, […]
Continue Readingby Leah Robbins, Administrative and Marketing Assistant Almost two months have passed since I began working at Mayyim Hayyim. I have settled into my desk, built a challenging, but civil relationship with our computer systems and their quirks, and am actively growing as a member of this extraordinary team of women who keep Mayyim Hayyim […]
Continue Readingby Bonita Sussman This past May, a delegation organized by Kulanu, an organization that supports returning, emerging, and isolated Jewish communities around the world, journeyed to Madagascar. It was the culmination of a long process that brought Malagasys into the Jewish faith through conversion. After ascertaining that all the men in Madagascar who wanted to […]
Continue Readingby Ronna Benjamin A little over a year ago, just after a “clean” mammogram, my primary care physician found a lump in my breast during a routine physical, and insisted on the ultrasound that saved my life. Countless women who have been through this sort of thing know what happened next: the biopsy, the agony […]
Continue Readingby Lisa Berman, Mikveh & Education Director Expectations. Raised, lowered, managed. We can’t help it — we think about what an experience will be like and then we measure it. Was it as good as we’d hoped? What would we do differently next time? What do we wish had happened? Mikveh is no different. I […]
Continue Readingby Shira Cohen-Goldberg January 25, 2009. Here was this guy from JDate. He liked Ethiopian food and taught at Tufts University. He was four years younger than I, just out of grad school, and had a warm smile. When we met for dinner, my hair was still wet from the gym, and I had forgotten […]
Continue Readingby Carrie Bornstein Someone recently asked me, “Why Mikveh? What’s the point? Why does it matter?” Here’s the story I told: My 9-year old daughter just left for a month at sleep-away camp last week for the first time. In preparation for this big change, I asked Ellie if she’d like to go to the […]
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