A Link to Jewish History, RBG’s Iconic Collars Were a Beacon for the Marginalized
Sometimes, the only way forward in life is to take it stitch by stitch. Last…
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Transparent Season 3: The Intersectional Messiah
Rabbi Raquel’s voice asks us: “What if you had to be your own messiah?”
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What Should Truly Disturb Us About Game of Thrones’ Child Sacrifice
Stannis Baratheon is not new. Like many viewers, I was sickened by his choice to…
Read MoreThe Blockbuster Spirituality of John Green’s “The Fault In Our Stars”
In my department’s hallway, there is a placard that asks, “What can I do with…
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Fight to the ‘Death’ and Go ‘Hungry’ at Hunger Games Camp
Inmates at Guantanamo Bay are hunger striking in an attempt to make their suffering visible while children at a camp in Florida are using the fantasy of hunger as entertainment.
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Thanksgivukkah, With a Side of Christmas Envy
Thanksgivukkah is a way of being out, loud, and proud—We’re here! We’re Jewish! We eat turkey AND latkes!—but can Jews ever compete with the juggernaut of Christmas?
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When Children’s Literature is Not Defined by “Innocence”
I wanted to think about how we mediate the past for children—and how we tell stories about children who lived in the past. Writing about religion, memory, and children’s literature became my way of doing that.
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‘Reasons My Son is Crying’ and the Suffering of Children
This is not just a dancing cat blog.
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Newtown Tragedy: The Horror of No Future
We remember child martyrs in the crusades, young Holocaust victims like Anne Frank, the deaths of Emmett Till and four little girls in Birmingham, Alabama. The children of the day care center in Oklahoma City. Our enduring image from that dark day is a fireman, soaked in blood, carrying a baby on the cover of the magazines. Youth move us because they bring to the light the existential horror of no future.
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Sikh Temple Shooting: Of Martian Rovers and Terror in Holy Spaces
Religionists can quickly rattle off myriad global, historical sites of contested holy space. But there is still something deeply nauseating, unhomed, un-everything, about attacks on vulnerable human beings at prayer, or about to pray. We want to believe in religious spaces as safe dwellings, as sanctuaries in the most literal sense of the word—but they have also long been targets for Americans who fear change.
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