by Rachel Eisen, Director of Annual Giving Jewish rituals and religious observance rely on community, and people are the backbone of communities. That’s what I walked away with after seeing the film, The Women’s Balcony. The film is about people from a small Sephardi congregation in Jerusalem, whose lives are disrupted when the upstairs women’s […]
Continue Readingby Rabbi Leora Abelson Ordination weekend began at the mikveh. This felt right for our class, which had marked the beginning of each year of rabbinical school with a ritual at Crystal Lake. We know that the mere presence of water can be grounding and heart-opening. We gathered early Friday morning. Our group of eleven […]
Continue Readingby Phyllis Hirth Here’s my timeline, short and sweet: I was born in Connecticut, raised as a Catholic, moved to New York after college, met my husband, and married into a Conservative Jewish family. My first experience with mikveh was during my own conversion to Judaism. My memory of that is less than pleasant. A woman […]
Continue Readingby Leeza Negelev, Associate Director of Education Last month, for the second time, I attended Limmud FSU (Former Soviet Union), a gathering of Russian-speaking and Russian-adjacent Jews from all walks of life. Last year, after teaching a session on mikveh, I enjoyed my newfound notoriety as “the mikveh lady,” as I came to be known. I […]
Continue Readingby Rabbi Mara Young “I didn’t expect this experience to move me as much as it did.” This was the refrain from my fellow travelers as they boarded our bus back to New York. Just a month ago, I had the pleasure of spending 48 hours in Boston with members of my congregation. Mayyim Hayyim […]
Continue Readingby Elyse Shuster I recently returned from a trip to southern Spain and Morocco. Part of the appeal of this region was its rich Jewish history, and I was definitely not disappointed! While much of the Jewish history in Spain is the story of a “golden age” cut short by the expulsion of the Jews […]
Continue Readingby Daniela Ovadia I bumped into Mayyim Hayyim almost by chance: I was in Boston last summer and I wanted to understand more about the Jewish life in the US. I am from Italy, where my parents arrived from Egypt in the 60’s. I married a non-Jewish man, but we have a Jewish family. Both […]
Continue Readingby Leah Robbins, Administrative and Marketing Assistant I grew up in a very traditional Conservative-with-a-capital-C Jewish household: Shabbos every week, day school, Camp Ramah, USY, study abroad in Israel – the whole megillah. All of this exposure, (or immersion as we like to say) into Jewish life had given me what I thought was a […]
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 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 Sofya Tamarkin My husband and I are eager travelers of far and remote places of world. Thus, we embarked on the cruise that started in Sidney, Australia and went to Tasmania and New Zealand. Just a few months before the journey I committed myself to the monthly visits to a mikveh. When I first […]
Continue Readingby Julie Dean We stood together with eager anticipation, a palpable electricity among us. Over fifty women from all walks of life, gathered around the indoor swimming pool in Albuquerque, NM, which was about to become our mikveh. The rabbi with us skillfully crafted our spiritual space, igniting our hearts with awareness of this ancient […]
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Mayyim Hayyim currently has limited availability for immersions while we undergo construction to repair damage incurred to the building following the extreme cold on February 4. We will be updating this page periodically with new information. To support our repairs, click here to donate.
