Avigayil Halpern
By Avigayil Halpern
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Life How Orthodox Day School Made Me a Feminist
An Orthodox day school is not a place many would expect to give young women the skills to become outspoken feminists, but this has been the case in my life. In many ways, my feminism was a reaction to the Orthodox environment around me: my second-grade self, when handed a coloring book on;y featuring pictures…
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Life Gap Between Israeli and American Jewish Feminism
illustration by Lior Zaltzman Growing up in West Hartford, Connecticut, at every Shabbat meal in my home, my father would make kiddush and my mother would make hamotzi, the blessing on the challah. For me, this is part of the fabric of what Shabbat feels like, and it has always felt strange for me to…
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Life How Tefillin Empowers Me
Editor’s Note: This article is a response to Avital Chizhik’s article which called for Orthodox feminism to seek to open the minds of women, not just to emulate the ritual practice of men. (Ha’aretz) — Dear Ms. Chizhik, I – a high-school student – write to you from a community in which your proposals for…
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Life I’m Observant — and I Wear Tzitzit
A few months ago, I was at the Kotel with my family. When I was leaving the site, a woman stopped me. She grabbed one of the knotted white fringes dangling from under my shirt and, in Hebrew, exclaimed “Tzitzit!? But this is forbidden!” No, I told her, it is permitted according to all major…
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