As Queer Pride month gives way to Disability Pride Month . . . Debbie Friedman. I've been reacquainting myself with her story recently, since I'm in the early stages of writing an encyclopedia article about her. One thing that I've been reminded of is how much she thought about her work and her music in terms of accessibility and ways to speak to Jews marginalized in multiple ways. It's known by now that Friedman was a lesbian, though debate still rages (recently, at the train station in Richmond, Virginia, among a group of my cantor friends) about when and whether she actually formally came out.
It's also known, though perhaps less well, that Friedman was disabled as well. Her official cause of death on 9 January 2011 was pneumonia, but she'd struggled since 1988 with dyskinesia, which is a neurological disorder that made the muscles in her legs seize up. For a woman who made her living standing on stages and playing the guitar, dyskinesia represents more than a mild inconvenience! Friedman worked closely with physical therapists, and really honed her stage presence, though as you can see here, she also led music sitting down in less formal settings.
One of her better-known songs, "Mi Shebeirach," which she co-wrote with her then-partner Rabbi Drorah Setel, came about partially because of her experiences with disability -- the prayer is something of a gloss on the traditional Jewish prayer for healing in that it asks both for healing and for the courage to live well whether or not that healing comes. Debbie Friedman's life was not long, but it was indeed a blessing.
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Two of my friends, who do not know each other, neither of whom is Jewish, independently sent this to me on the same day. Also, at least one of them pointed out that this is allegedly part of the program for a funeral. Make of that what you will.
From the description in the article, the curriculum sounds perfectly "Judeo-Christian," because "Judeo-Christian" does not actually mean "giving equal weight to Judaism and Christianity." It means "Christianity flavored with Christian ideas of Judaism in much the same way that La Croix brand sparkling water is 'flavored' with fruit-like molecules."
Chad Gadya, the cumulative song about One Little Goat, crops up at Passover seders all over the world. It's sung in many different languages, to many different tunes, and rabbis have tried to hang a million different lessons on it. Why do we sing it? Honestly, speaking as someone with a PhD in Jewish ethnomusicology . . . probably because it's fun! Passover is a celebration, and why shouldn't we sit around singing a fun song at a celebration, especially considering the amount of wine we have consumed?
This version is sung in Judeo-Tajik, or Bukharian. This is a variant of Persian that is spoken by the Jewish community of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, most of whom live in Queens these days. The instruments are oud and kamanche, both very common West Asian instruments. Toward the end of the song (they don't do all the verses), you'll hear a bit of Hebrew mixed in. But, like all versions of Chad Gadya, the real fun is in the chorus. It's catchy and you'll find yourself singing along.
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Like everything Eden Pearlstein does with the Darshan Project, there are layers in this song and in this video. Believe it or not, this song starts from an exploration of the beginning of Psalm 29, calling upon all the holy beings to ascribe glory and strength to the Divine. Here, Pearlstein collaborates with several North American Indigenous artists to create a meditation on the earth, ecology, and the relationships between people groups and the lands they call home.
There can never be too many tomatoes. August’s heat is always made more bearable for me by peak tomato season. ...
I made these for dinner tonight, and they are So Good. Several ingredients need to be chopped up real tiny -- specifically, the mushrooms and the tomato tops and guts. Because I am not trying to win Master Chef brownie points, I used a mini food processor to do this, and it made my life much easier. These are a lovely light meal, which will be important in a few days when the heat dome hits my part of the US and I won't want to eat much. And, because I know some people will appreciate knowing this, they are vegan right up until the point where you put the mootz on top. Vegans, I'm sure you can find something to replace the mootz. Everyone else, mootz it up and enjoy!
I'm Jewish, but I don't really post about it much because I feel like will never be qualified to ever make any meaningful input.
I was raised completely detached from my matrilineally Jewish heritage. The only thing I know is that they were Eastern European Ashkenazim. My grandmother never talked about her family much because they were really terrible people. I feel like that bled into being ashamed to be Jewish. To the point that my mother identifies as just a white Evangelical... even going as far as getting a Southern Baptist Cross engraved on my grandmother's headstone. She and my sister only care about their Jewishness to play politics. My mom falls in line with whatever Trump is doing, and my sister is an antizionist tankie. I am the only one that cares about keeping our Jewish heritage alive.
I always so out of place and like an imposter. I never got to learn about being Jewish so I'm always playing catch up. Hebrew is, for some reason, more difficult for me to pick up than any other language I've learned. I don't think I will ever be able to come to the bimah and read the Torah on the High Holidays. I don't believe I'll ever hold a bar mitzvah for the same reason.
I don't own a tallis or a kippah. I feel like I don't deserve to. I don't know enough about being Jewish because it was taken from me without ever really knowing. I feel like everyone, especially here can tell that I don't know anything and that's why I feel so alone.
I'm just a shoddy, piecemeal imitation of a Jew, my identity just cobbled together with garbage and scraps. I shouldn't here because I'm just an incomprehensible mess that brings no value to the Jewish community
Your value is not what you bring to the community. YOU are what you bring to the community. YOU are what we need and cherish. So you don't speak Hebrew and you don't know much about the rituals or whatever? Nu, you and a million other Jews. You're still Jewish. You're still a piece of the big Jewish puzzle, and it won't be complete without you. Who cares if you didn't get a Jewish education as a kid, you can still study Judaism as an adult. That is literally the most Jewish thing you can do, no exaggeration. Torah l'shma, learning for the sake of learning, is foundational to the culture; it’s what spurs us to expand our knowledge of the world, of God, of ourselves. Embracing your craving to know more is far more important than your personal archive of knowledge.
Every Jewish soul that ever was or ever would be stood at Sinai together. Sometimes they wander off a bit and end up somewhere far away, but they're still Jewish, and they still find their way home. It's like there's a call reeling them back in. Converts aren't aliens who decided to join the tribe, they're our long-lost siblings who felt that call and followed it all the way back home. Same with born Jews who got disconnected from the community. We don’t care where they started from, we’re just happy to get our family back.
Read over what you’ve written. You write like you crave to be Jewish, but you won’t allow yourself to be because you don’t live up to your standards of Jewishness. Don’t you see how twisted that is? You yearn for home, you feel that call in your soul. But you won’t let yourself to go home, because you think you don’t deserve it. Well, if you need to hear it, I’ll tell it to you right now:
You deserve to come home.
So come home. We need you. It’s not complete without you. You are more precious than rubies. Come home.
So what if you don't speak Hebrew and it's hard to learn? A lot of Jews have terrible Hebrew. And it is hard to learn. Which is why some siddurim have some transliteration. And which is part of the reason why we sing.
I've been a singer since I was six, and I promise you it's much easier to sing a foreign language than speak it. Cantor Benjie-Ellen Schiller herself, Rabbi Lawrence A. Hoffman Professor of Liturgy, Worship, and Ritual and Professor of Cantorial Arts at the Hebrew Union College Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music, has spoken about how, in college, she could speak only about four words of Hebrew, and she found her way into prayer through song. And if you don't think you have much of a voice . . . who cares? Sing anyway. It's the synagogue, not Carnegie Hall.
Rabbis love people who come in wanting to explore their Jewish heritage; having those conversations is literally part of their job description. I don't know where you are, but if there's a Jewish community near you, email the rabbi (/cantor/kolbo) and ask to make an appointment to talk to them about wanting to re-connect with your heritage. I don't know a single rabbi who wouldn't be delighted to get that email.
And if you just maybe want to visit a synagogue to see what it's like, you can generally do that. If you're not in the US, you might have to email the synagogue first to let them know you're coming, and even in the US these days, it's good form, just so that any guards or greeters know to expect you. But beyond basic safety precautions, we do love guests, and someone is very likely to come say hello and make sure you know what's going on. (At my synagogue, we can in fact go a little over the top on the friendliness sometimes, but we mean no harm by it.)
If you're curious, we'd love to meet you. If you feel like an impostor Jew, then call yourself a guest for the first few visits -- we love guests, too. The first step into any new setting is the hardest, but there are people who will welcome you no matter how you frame your presence, and no matter how that framing may or may not change. Email a rabbi, and see what happens!
now, you might ask, “why are they repeating ‘baby killers’ and accusations of ‘eating children’ so often?”
“why is this so ubiquitous on social media and even now in real life?”
A young Orthodox Jewish woman was hospitalized with a concussion after she was attacked in Manhattan by a fellow passenger
An exhibition in Margate of grotesque drawings by Matthew Collings is emblematic of the way the art world is normalising anti-Semitism. The
An art exhibition in Kent, England, is showcasing imagery rooted in classic antisemitic libels and denying documented atrocities from the Oc
There’s a dangerous myth spreading on social media. It’s radicalizing people and inspiring real-world violence: Jews have been falsely accus
There’s a dangerous myth spreading on social media. It’s radicalizing people and inspiring real-world violence: Jews have been falsely accused of "blood libel,” which has led to the persecution, massacres, and the expulsion of Jewish communities.
A group of anti-Israel activists staged a grotesque spectacle at Union Station in Washington, DC, on Thursday, resurrecting one of the oldes
actually, you probably wouldn’t ask why, because you’re reading this post, which means you’re either Jewish or an ally and already know all about blood libel.
still, it is growing in pervasive popularity, and it is as dangerous now in 2026 as it was in 1144, and every other time it has stained history, and has inevitably led to the murder of Jews.
what needs to be understood is that it is the very worst, most monstrous accusation most people can think of. in many ways it usurped the charge of deicide (though that is where this concept originated, Jews as the killers of Christ), a charge leveled specifically against Jews to prove them as a unique and inhuman evil, the corrupters and perverters and destroyers of everything pure, good, and innocent. Jews kill children on purpose, in fact, they even slaughter and consume them and use their blood for their profane rituals. it’s an easy lie, and a seductive one (it’s also absurd, but when has Judenhass ever been logical?). get the people to believe that and of course they’ll hate those responsible for it. let the messengers be those who are respected, admired, adored, and it will travel that much faster, be given that much more legitimacy.
this time, the charge is even more horrific because children have undeniably and wrongfully died in the midst of war, and that is being categorized as intent, as targeted murder, rather than as terrible casualties. the questions aren’t even about conduct or whether enough was done to prevent these deaths, whether there are soldiers and other officials that do need to be held to account. that doesn’t incite enough distress, that wouldn’t reasonably cause Jews around the globe to be attacked for it. instead it’s boiled down to the basest accusation: they’re Jews. killing kids is what they do.
the medieval town square is now every corner of social media. the trusted monks are now the celebrated entertainers and influencers and politicians.
I’ve borrowed this quote before and will again (and so does this astute video): The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.
henmazzig:
Most people will admit they’ve absorbed something from the racism or sexism baked into movies and TV.
That’s why we scrutinize problematic messages in media, and why every push to change them meets so much resistance.
What people see affects how they think about others. In 2026, this is hardly a new idea.
Yet even though false antisemitic ideas have been widespread in Western art and media for centuries, few are willing to accept that they might have absorbed anti-Jewish ideas.
Like it or not, you have to work at it, actively, the way you would with any other bias you didn’t choose to inherit.
Because the background hum of this society is that Jews are to blame for almost everything that goes wrong.
It’s not a true story. Never has been. But it’s one that’s left its imprint on generations, and gotten millions of Jews killed in the process.
That idea doesn’t disappear, even if it changes clothes.
(x)
“Nine centuries, one libel, and its genius has always been that it travels best on trusted lips - not the monster’s, the beloved’s.”
Here's another one that I'm filing away for my Hebrew students next year! In the Ashkenazi world, we've pretty much narrowed the Shema down to either chanting it or using That One Tune that everyone thought was Sulzer's for decades before Judah Cohen suggested that it might be Jacob Beimel's instead. But there are other ways to call your fellow Jews to declaim the unity of the Divine! Here's a melody from Cairo, a place that did in fact have a significant Jewish population until the twentieth century. Today, there are about five elderly Jewish women left in Egypt, but you might still hear this melody around Jerusalem, Haifa, or Tel Aviv.
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Okay, not the usual approach to the study of world religions, but . . . yeah, I can dig it! He's got the basics down (though I do hope he seasoned his matzo balls), and I like the look of his soup.
I was born in 1980 and I want y’all to know that everything about this is true. I watched this video and I was audibly like “what’s wrong with drinking out of a hose?” Nobody tell me. I don’t want to know.
Also, until the late 90s the only kind of sunscreen we had in our house wasn’t SPF 25 or SPF 50 or whatever. It was Tan Magnifier. Do y’all even know what that is? My mom would usually go with a Tan Magnifier that was SPF -4 but I know that they went as high as SPF -10. Eventually, they ended up becoming illegal for basically being an accelerant for skin cancer, but it’s all my mom used when I was growing up. Yeah, we didn’t have anything in our house with a positive SPF on it I don’t think. She didn’t want me to use it though, so I just never used sunscreen.
Where, oh where, in the desperately poor shtetl, do you find the ingredients to make a simple dish like kasha varnishkes? You need to find the kasha and the noodles and the salt and the pepper and the fat to cook it in, and maybe an onion . . . and even after you've done all that . . .
Where, oh where, will you find the man of your dreams to eat it with you?
Such are the questions of a Yiddish singer of the early twentieth century. The answers to many of these questions were in the United States or the UK, as it happened.
Pleased to report that after a day of this i am not longer craving caper brine and my mouth is not dry as usual. There's some good suggestions in the notes too that I want to try.
-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)
-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt
Tasting History has a video and static page with a recipe for Posca (Ancient Rome).
Some historical context on Switchel from Gastro Obscura, and a recipe as part of a teaching plan from America's Test Kitchen.
Read Mary Randolph's 19th century recipe for Cherry Shrub (and other cordials) on page 171 of The Virginia House-wife. Or here's a more recent recipe for Currant Shrub.
Daniel Halfon, Sephardi hazzan par excellence and the singer here, describes this selection from the Sheva Brachot, the Seven Blessings sung to a couple at their wedding, as "a wonderful musical folly, an indulgence in which aural charm entirely eclipses liturgical consistency." This is a tune used largely in the Spanish and Portuguese community in New York, where it supersedes the regular tunes used at this point in the Sheva Brachot. As Halfon observes, it is indeed highly charming. Perhaps a little decorous for my personal taste . . . but then, my favorite setting of the Sheva Brachot, which I sang for some friends a few years ago, is based on a tune from Alsace and gets rather Dramatique™ around this point in the proceedings!
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Here's a grand old Jewish legacy! The song "Belz" is a classic Yiddish weepie, evoking the singer's nostalgia for the glorious town of Belz (in Ukraine, near Lviv and the Polish border), home of glorious, golden-tinged childhood years. Al Jolson later fitted English words to it, turning it into "That Wonderful Girl Of Mine." Eddie Fisher* later recorded this homage to Jolson, combining the original Yiddish lyrics and Jolson's English setting.
I just finished reading When The Angels Left The Old Country, which features a few characters from Belz. I suspect that these characters might not have been so immediately nostalgic for the town they left behind, but maybe later in life . . .
*Father of Carrie Fisher, who drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.
