New York State

Don’t live in New York? Check out the Chaverim Hub for opportunities nationally and in your area! T’ruah’s New York State cluster focuses on statewide campaigns, both through direct advocacy in Albany and by plugging into local efforts to support legislation on the state level.  We’re proud to be part of the #CommunitiesNotCages coalition, pushing...
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Photo of the author, Rabbi Lana Zilberman Soloway

Bamidbar: Lispor and Lesaper

We have been counting the days since October 7, counting the unbearable number of lost lives, counting the number of hostages, counting the number of people who became refugees in their own land. We count and we count and we count. And we tell a story. Each and every one of us.
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As Israel Ages, Is It Coming Into Its Own?

In this week’s Torah portion, we read the following words about the first Jew ever to set out for the land we call Israel:  “V’Avraham zakein ba bayamim” – “Abraham was old, advanced in years.”  Torah scholars point out that the phrase is redundant – if he’s old, we already know he’s advanced in years. ...
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An Echo of Shofar

At the end of June, my husband and I took our daughter, Zohar, to Harrisburg. She was six months old at the time. We each put on a tallit (the baby’s was a black onesie screen-printed with an image of a tallit) and gathered in a tent on the Capitol steps along with rabbis, cantors...
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Rabbi Laurie Franklin

Mishpatim: Mishpatim in Montana

Mishpatim teaches that formal justice must be free of influence from bribes or wealth status, and that even the stranger deserves protection. In my home state of Montana, regressive laws recently passed in our 2023 state legislature have revoked rights and freedoms from Montana residents under the guise of “protection” and “freedom of speech."
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Parashat Bamidbar: The Imperative to Provide Refuge

My father’s family were refugees from Vienna, who fled just before World War II broke out, but not before my grandfather had been deported to Dachau. He remained incarcerated there from November 13, 1938, until January 19, 1939. He knew he had to leave Austria with his family. But leaving wasn’t easy. First, it meant...
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Opening Our Eyes

Rabbi Shira Koch Epstein analyzes Balaam's blindness and points to our own blind spots in this drash on Parshat Balak.
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