Inside Leadership

I am a queer Jewish woman of Color, and it is impossible to separate all of my intersecting identities.

As a rabbinical school student, my Judaism is a key component to who I am. I live in a Jewish city, learn about Jewish practices, and constantly uncover how the basis of my tradition is connected to my spiritual identity.

I use Jewish tradition as an avenue to reflect on my entire being. I love Judaism’s tradition of tikkun middot (repairing our character) and cheshbon hanefesh (accounting for the soul). Being able to reflect, every single day, on my intersecting...

Editor's note: The text that follows was presented before a live audience at the 2019 URJ Biennial.

Only a few short years after the founding of the United States of America, George Washington expressed in an exchange of letters with the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R.I., the oldest synagogue in the U. S., the following historic sentiment:

“For happily the Government of the United States gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as...