A Different Sexual Revolution
NiSh’ma – A Different Sexual Revolution
Featured Artists: Raffael Lomas, Dorothy Field, and Carmela Tal Baron
A Season for Chutzpah
Alan Dershowitz
Ecclesiastes teaches us that to everything there is a season. Nearly 20 years ago I wrote a book called Chutzpah in which I argued that the Jewish community needs more chutzpah.
Changing Families
The Colors of Jews: Racial Politics and Radical Diasporism , by Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, Indiana University Press, 2007. 320 pages, $24.00
The Family Flamboyant: Race Politics, Queer Families, Jewish Lives , by Marla Brettschneider, SUNY Press, 2006. 232 pages, $24.95
Reviewed by Caryn Aviv
ReMapping the Road from Sinai
Judith Plaskow and Elliot Rose Kukla explore the potential and limits of a shared transgender and feminist movement.
Queer Klezmer Quandary
Alicia Svigals
In 20 years of playing klezmer music, I had never before examined the question. Beyond a vague wish to apologize when presenting certain material, and a parallel project to write more relevant lyrics for our songs, I had never entertained the contradiction between songs celebrating brides and grooms, and my life as a lesbian.
In Search of Desire
Esther Perel
Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice in New York, and the host of the Downtown Salon. She speaks in this interview with Sh’ma Editor Susan Berrin about the Search for Desire.
Teaching Jewish Sexual Ethics
Danya Ruttenberg
Even otherwise liberal people often fear that speaking frankly about sexuality, in all its messy complexity, will encourage young adults to become sexually active—but this is unrealistic.
Teach Values First
David Silverstein
Jewish teens learn their religion’s take on sexual ethics by amassing a laundry list of vague “dont’s” through a grapevine of rabbis, fearful parents, and sometimes unprepared youth educators.
You Shall be Holy
Jillian Cogan
What my friends and I discovered was similar to what Danya Ruttenberg describes in her essay: a list of “don’ts” instead of what Judaism actually says about having a healthy relationship.
Developing a Personal Code
Shelley Halman
I agree with Danya’s students when they speak about the emotional ramifications of sex. It complicates everything.
