The JeWitch Collective is exactly what it sounds like: a group of people who are connected to Jewish spirituality, magic-based practices or both. They traffic in terms like pagan, neo-pagan, feminist, queer, Earth-based Judaism and “reclaiming” (as in the belief that they are reclaiming magical Jewish feminine practices proscribed by Jewish authorities long, long ago).…
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Jew in the Pew
Jew in the Pew
A journey into the Holy of Holies — in a Latter-day Saints temple
Last Monday morning, I found myself in an unexpected place, sitting silently with a group of Bay Area journalists in the Celestial Room of the Oakland…
Jew in the Pew
Is it an exercise class or a prayer service?
Jewish prayer is a largely sedentary activity. We stand up, we sit down, we gently bow now and then. Things are a little different at Rabbi Jaymee…
Jew in the Pew
Called to the Torah for the first time — as adults
“Today I become a man,” 70-year-old Judy Kraft said to a round of laughter. She was one of 10 adults to become b’nai mitzvah in one blockbuster service at…
Jew in the Pew
Pride Shabbat is this synagogue’s highest holiday
First, there were cocktails. At Congregation Sha’ar Zahav, the historically LGBTQ synagogue in the Mission, in a festively decorated upstairs social hall…
Jew in the Pew
When Moshiach comes, men will clear the table
Think back to the very end of Passover — those final, agonizingly bread-free moments of the weeklong exercise in self-control. What were you doing?…
Jew in the Pew
22 international diplomats, 70 Jews, one seder
When I imagine the platonic ideal of a Passover seder, it is loud, discursive, long and more than a little chaotic. Yet I also know the American seder is…
Jew in the Pew
An adults-only Tu B’Shevat seder — sobering, but hardly sober
Ancient tax day. Kabbalistic metaphor. Zionist agricultural festival. Tu B’Shevat has been many things. In modern America, as the environment became a…
Jew in the Pew
Swapping pulpits for a better world
When Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first observed in 1986, there was resistance and uproar from the KKK and other assorted racists. As a spiritual…