by Cantor Jeri Robins The start of a new year – whether Rosh Hashanah or the school year – is always an opportunity to reflect on the past and look toward the future. One of the things I most look forward to at this time is visiting Mayyim Hayyim. I have been to Mayyim Hayyim […]
Continue Readingby Fern Remedi-Brown This is our family’s story: Before we adopted our now-12-year-old daughter, Maya, from Guatemala, we had decided on her name. Her biological mother had given her the name María Guadalupe, which means “river of black stones.” We are a two-mom, bi-cultural family. I was raised Jewish, and my wife, Ginny, was a […]
Continue Readingby Amber Caulkins, Director of Rising Tide “I love the mikveh. The water is so warm.” These were the words of my five year-old daughter, Rebecca, as she sat at the breakfast table, a half-eaten bowl of cereal in front of her, looking at a picture she had drawn the day before. The picture, drawn […]
Continue Readingby Kim Creem This past May was my daughter Lily’s Bat Mitzvah at Temple Emanuel in Newton, where we have been members for over 15 years. She had been at Temple Emanuel for both preschool and Hebrew school and was completing her last year at Makor at Hebrew College in the spring. Over the years, […]
Continue ReadingReposted with permission from Fresh Ideas from HBI: The Hadassah Brandeis Institute Blog by Elana Luban When I first heard about the annual Gilda Slifka summer intern’s trip to Mayyim Hayyim, I wasn’t quite sure what could be groundbreaking or ideologically feminist about a mikveh. My first two mikveh trips shaped my life and my […]
Continue Readingby Leeza Negelev, Associate Director of Education I first joined Mayyim Hayyim’s program for Bat Mitzvah girls and their mothers, Beneath the Surface, as an educator for the 11th cohort in 2014. I had heard a lot about the impact of the program: how beloved it is by the moms and daughters who participate, as […]
Continue Readingby Leah Bieler All four of my kids inherited things from me: some good, and some bad. And since I tend to be a bit strong-willed – some might even say stubborn – it’s no surprise that trait got passed down to all four of them…must be a dominant gene. But my younger daughter, Nili […]
Continue Readingby Lauren Korn Spring is the season for renewal and new starts. My season of new beginnings started while we were still in fear of having snow days. My name is Lauren, and I have been a stay-at-home mom for the past 10 years. That phrase took a long time for me to be able to […]
Continue Readingby Shira Cohen-Goldberg, Board Member Where are we going, Momma? To a special program, just you and me. What is the program? We are going to learn about water and a special place in our community called Mayyim Hayyim. What does Mayyim Hayyim mean? Is that Hebrew? What are we going to do there? Can […]
Continue Readingby Dalia Wassner On a chilly, fall morning, my 3 kids and I headed out to Brandeis, excited to participate in our first Water Wonders, a Mayyim Hayyim family program for children in grades K-2. Mayyim Hayyim has been a special place for me since the day before my own wedding, just over 10 years […]
Continue ReadingExcerpts from Keeping the Faith: How Compromise, Curiosity and Tradition Guide One Interfaith Family, by Abigail Mnookin Reflections before the mikveh: For my mom’s 70th birthday this month, my brother and I are giving her an unusual gift. Her four grandchildren will be immersed in a ritual bath, or mikveh, which symbolizes their conversion to […]
Continue Readingby Leeza Negelev, Associate Director of Education Last week I taught a group of 7th graders and parents from Congregation Shalom in Chelmsford. It was our standard, 90-minute education program where students learned about the biblical origins of mikveh immersion, the halachic (Jewish legal) construction of a mikveh, and the many reasons why people immerse, among […]
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