Rachel Román is a writer and photographer in Seattle.
Rachel Román
By Rachel Román
-
Fast Forward The Queer Mikveh Project immerses marginalized Jews in a changing ritual
(JTA) — Last Passover, a group of 125 Jews gathered via Zoom for a community mikvah ritual. Dr. Harriette Wimms, a queer Black Jewish psychologist and kohenet (Hebrew priestess), opened the ceremony by pouring libations, an African tradition of granting a water offering for ancestors. Some people immersed themselves in their bathtubs, spilled water down…
-
News Lisa Colton has great big bold ideas on Jews and climate change
Lisa Colton plans to galvanize the Jewish community around climate change the same way she once sold Girl Scout cookies: with new ideas. As a scout, Colton purchased a box of each flavor cookie with her own money, cut the individual cookies into small pieces and offered them as samples. She sold more than 1,000…
-
Fast Forward Gonzaga University, a Catholic college near historically neo-Nazi territory, gets its first Torah scroll and Jewish space
SEATTLE (JTA) — Eastern Washington is a region that, for the last half-century, was far better known for its hate groups than its Jewish community. Spokane and the surrounding area was infamously a hotbed of racism from the 1970s through the 1990s, a time period that included multiple acts of vandalism and neo-Nazi intimidation at…
-
Fast Forward The season of the Jewitch: Meet the occultists who blend witchcraft and Jewish folklore
(JTA) — Occult practices and totems are a mainstay of Halloween season, and sage bundles, altars and crystals are an increasingly trendy way to dabble in divination and witchcraft. But the spooky supernatural world also has a long history in Judaism, and modern “Jewitches” are encouraging the connection — though their practices often slightly differ…
Most Popular
- 1
Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
- 2
Opinion With killing of Hezbollah’s chief, Israel occupies the inarguable moral high ground
- 3
Culture A Jewish prophet of the 1980s would be horrified to see that we didn’t heed his warnings
- 4
Fast Forward Meet Lev Kreitman, who brought down Tel Aviv shooter and survived Nova music festival on Oct. 7
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion A year after Oct. 7, Israel has the chance to remake its future — for better or worse
-
Opinion Campus protests defined the year since Oct. 7. Could they actually change U.S. policy?
-
Special Report At the kibbutz hit hardest on Oct. 7, a wrenching debate over how to rebuild
-
Opinion Oct. 7 changed Israel. A year later, it must change American Jews, too
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism