By Leah Hart Tennen, Mikveh Center Director Calm is not typically a word I would use to describe myself; I’m loud, energetic, busy and have two small boys. I have almost always worked at more than one job at a time, and, for much of my life, have been looking around the corner to see […]
Continue ReadingWritten by Rabbi Daniel Brenner At a conference on a ridiculously sunny spring day at New York University, I met a Jewish guy in his thirties who was planning on getting hitched this summer. When he heard that I was the director of a project focused on the lives of boys and men in the […]
Continue ReadingWritten By Aliza Kline, Founding Executive Director of Mayyim Hayyim About 10 days ago I had the opportunity to teach about Mayyim Hayyim to first-year students at the Jerusalem campus of Hebrew Union College. I love teaching seminary students; they are eager to learn and find connections between their personal spiritual journey and Jewish practice. […]
Continue ReadingWritten by Alissa Golbus, Cohort Seven Mikveh Guide In spite of myself, I started to become a mother the moment I said the shehecheyanu after seeing the faint positive sign appear on the pregnancy test. I knew that not all planned first pregnancies end with you holding your baby in your arms, but they do […]
Continue ReadingWritten by Amy Chartock, National Programs Director Have you ever been to a mikveh with an art gallery? If Mayyim Hayyim were only a kosher mikveh, a warm, welcoming space that is gladdening to the eye, dayenu, it would be enough! But we don’t stop there. Why not adorn the walls with rotating […]
Continue ReadingWritten by Rabbi Haviva Ner-David At the newly-revived religiously and socially progressive Kibbutz Hannaton in Lower Galilee, a tradition has evolved to hold a women’s circle at our mikveh for each woman a few weeks before she is due to give birth. Thankfully, we have located on our kibbutz a unique mikveh in the Israeli […]
Continue Readingby Carrie Bornstein, Acting Executive Director When I first saw the headlines about Anne Frank’s posthumous baptism, I thought it odd, to say the least. Days later, the news came about Daniel Pearl. Thankfully the Mormon Church later released this letter clarifying its policy that such baptisms by proxy should not include names from certain […]
Continue ReadingBy Rabbi Matthew Berger, Rabbi at Temple Emanuel On December 22, 2011, the 2nd day of Hanukkah, I accompanied two of my conversion students, Leonarda and Zechariah, to Mayyim Hayyim for their Beit Din (court of three) and T’vilah (immersion). This remarkable couple, originally from Puerto Rico, chose to convert to Judaism together – a […]
Continue ReadingMayyim Hayyim is pleased to offer its successful program, “Beyond the Huppah: Creating the Jewish Marriage You Want” beginning this Sunday, March 4 (a few spots still remain!). Enjoy this reprint of a blog post from the program’s facilitator, Judy Elkin, describing one of the remarkably insightful exercises she employs in the program to help couples relate […]
Continue ReadingWritten by Aliza Kline, Executive Director of Mayyim Hayyim “Monologim Mihamikveh” (“Mikveh Monologues”), was the title of a recent article that my Hebrew tutor, Rona, showed to me. I met Rona through ESRA, an Israeli organization that supports English-speakers moving to Israel. Once a week, we sit at her kitchen table to drink coffee, schmooze, […]
Continue ReadingBy Janet R. Being an atheist has worked well for me. I’ve explored religions, never found much meaning in them, and have happily existed as a culturally Jewish non-believer. I’ve never quite understood what ‘spiritual’ means, except maybe it’s what I felt at the end of a couple of yoga classes, or while listening to […]
Continue Readingby Carrie Bornstein, Acting Executive Director With nightfall coming so early during the winter, Shabbat lunch with friends often turns into a lazy post-meal afternoon of exhausted parents sitting around enjoying each other’s company, while their animated young children turn the host’s place upside-down. Hypothetically speaking, of course. On one such recent occasion, the next thing […]
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