September 2021 / Tishrei 5782 Dear friend, It’s been a long, hard pandemic. We asked each other, “What’s the first thing you’ll do once you’re vaccinated?” For me, the first thing I needed to do was immerse at Mayyim Hayyim. Lockdown overlapped with the year of mourning for my beloved Abba, my father. It wasn’t until May of this year that I felt ready to go to Mayyim Hayyim. I went in the water bearing the compounded pain of that […]
Continue ReadingIn November 2004, the Sixth Day Group, a group of thirteen women gathered at Mayyim Hayyim; some were cancer survivors, others were caregivers and health care professionals. They had each wished for a specifically Jewish, spiritual guide to the difficult journey through treatment and its aftermath, and decided to join together and create one. For […]
Continue ReadingOn May 11th, Mayyim Hayyim’s annual benefit, Making History, will celebrate two visionary leaders for making history in our community. Shanna was raised in a secular family in St. Louis and Chicago, where her parents helped establish St. Louis’s Central Reform Congregation. She first learned of mikveh while taking a Jewish studies course in college—coincidentally, […]
Continue ReadingOn May 11th, Mayyim Hayyim’s annual benefit, Making History, will celebrate two visionary leaders for making history in our community. Jonathan Sarna arrived in Boston at the age of ten. His father, Nahum Sarna, was a biblical scholar at Brandeis and his mother, Helen, a librarian and cataloger at Hebrew College. He attended Brandeis, and […]
Continue ReadingBy Dr. Max Klau In the early days after the 2016 election, I made myself a vow to immerse in the mikveh when the time came to mark the end of his administration. In late January 2021—about a week after the inauguration—I made it happen. I spent a good long time floating in the warm […]
Continue Readingby Maiya Edelson When my now husband and I started planning our wedding, we sat down together and talked about the values and priorities we wanted throughout the planning process and the event itself. We spoke about the “feel” of our ceremony and reception, and how we wanted it to be fun and festive and […]
Continue Readingby Elisha Gechter I have worked and volunteered at many great local Jewish organizations, but I tell everyone that Mayyim Hayyim is my favorite place in Jewish Boston. So it is my pleasure to ask that you join me in donating to our community mikveh before the end of 2020 with a generous gift. My connection to Mayyim Hayyim is […]
Continue Readingby Shanna Shulman I was there to test the water… or rather, to test the new policies and procedures Mayyim Hayyim had developed to reduce the risk of COVID transmission. Mayyim Hayyim had made the difficult decision to close the mikveh last April when transmission levels were rising in our area. The staff and board […]
Continue Readingby Shira Cohen-Goldberg Mayyim Hayyim hasn’t let a pandemic get in the way of building a more vibrant, inclusive Jewish community. In fact, even while its doors were closed, Mayyim Hayyim found a way to make mikveh open and accessible for everyone, including me. Because of Mayyim Hayyim, I realized that I was not alone, […]
Continue Readingby Dr. Gail Levine-Fried My mother first brought my sister and I to the water as children growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. She loved swimming and the ocean, and took us to swimming pools, public and private, in parts of Brooklyn far from our neighborhood. Mom didn’t drive a car, but she schlepped us […]
Continue Readingby Shira Cohen-Goldberg Today I did something hard. No, it wasn’t homeschooling two children while keeping a toddler out of danger and trying to work my day job. That was today, yesterday, the day before that, and will likely be tomorrow, the day after that, and the day after that. While nothing during this pandemic […]
Continue Readingby Amy Fleming I’m doing okay during this COVID-19 shutdown. My geographically scattered family members are healthy. We’re aware that we are very fortunate. But like everyone else, I long for life to return “back to normal.” I miss the structure and routine of volunteering every Wednesday at Mayyim Hayyim, which I’ve been doing for […]
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