Stories from
our people.
Essays, reflections and conversations about identity, peoplehood and the ongoing work of cultural reclamation.
01Material CultureWearing Memory: A Portrait of Moroccan Jewish Women
Yzabela Hazan in a photographic tribute to the women of Moroccan Jewry. Explore the portraits, the details and the collaboration behind the camera.
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02Aliyah & ReturnOfficially Decolonized
A personal reflection on making Aliyah through love, honoring family on Tu B’Av and returning home to the Jewish people’s ancestral land.
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03Jewish Time & PeoplehoodTu B’Av: A Holiday of Jewish Unity
Tu B’Av is more than a Jewish Valentine’s Day. The fifteenth of Av carries an older invitation: to repair division, return to Jerusalem and choose one another again.
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04Memory & SovereigntyThe Arch of Titus and the Jewish Return
On Tisha B’Av, the Arch of Titus reminds us of what Rome destroyed and of the people, language and civilization it could not erase.
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05Memory & PeoplehoodTisha B’Av: From Rupture to Reclamation
Tisha B’Av asks us to mourn what was destroyed, honor what our ancestors preserved and decide what we will carry forward.
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06History & IdentityFrom the Dreyfus Affair to Jewish Self-Determination
What the Dreyfus Affair, Theodor Herzl and the persistence of antisemitism can teach us about Jewish sovereignty, visibility and choosing aliyah from love.
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07ReflectionFrom Preservation to Renewal at the Kotel
At the stones of the Kotel, generations of Jewish memory become a living call to return, repair and build together.
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08IdentityYasmine on Becoming a Decolonized Judean
A personal reflection on reconnecting with Judean roots, learning history, language and tradition, and unlearning colonial mindsets.
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09PeoplehoodAshkenazi Jews Are Not White
Amy Schecter reflects on diaspora, identity and the history that connects Ashkenazi Jews to their Middle Eastern origins.
READ STORYDiaspora Is a Journey, Not an Origin
The places Jewish communities traveled shaped us profoundly, but they do not replace where Jewish peoplehood began.
READ STORYWhat Do We Mean by Jewish Peoplehood?
Jewish identity includes religion, ancestry, culture, memory and collective responsibility without being reducible to any one of them.
READ STORYThe Many Meanings of Sephardi and Mizrahi
Useful labels can reveal shared histories, but they can also hide the diversity of Jewish communities across Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean.
READ STORYJewish Women as Keepers of Music and Memory
Songs, celebrations and domestic rituals preserved knowledge that formal archives frequently overlooked.
READ STORYWhat Clothing and Jewelry Preserve
Dress can carry geography, family status, craftsmanship, protection and communal memory all at once.
READ STORYWhy Hebrew Survived
Hebrew endured through study, prayer, correspondence and the shared textual life of communities separated by geography.
READ STORYFrom Judea to Ashkenaz
Ashkenazi culture emerged in Europe, while Jewish peoplehood and collective memory reached much further back.
READ STORYThe Jewish Communities That Disappeared in One Generation
During the twentieth century, ancient Jewish communities across the Middle East and North Africa were reduced to a fraction of their former presence.
READ STORYCan Decolonial Language Describe Jewish History?
Decolonial language can illuminate Jewish cultural reclamation, but only when used with historical precision and ethical care.
READ STORYVisible Jewish Pride Without Simplifying Palestinian History
Jewish visibility and Palestinian dignity do not have to be competing moral commitments.
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