Categories for Keshet

The LGBTQ+ Purim Jewsletter 5786

Well, it’s Purim again. And right on cue, things are most certainly upside down. Again. Still. It’s hard to believe that it has already been six months since I stepped into the role of Chief Executive Dog, following the extraordinary tenure of our founding Chief Executive Dog, Langston Namerow-Klein, whose…

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The Purim Story and the Courage to Remain

The final chapter of Megillat Esther can be summed up as, “The cogs of empire continue on.” After all is said and done—the decree to exterminate the Jews is overturned, the Jews are able to successfully defend themselves against the people who sought their extermination—we read that the Persian emperor…

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Reflections on Parshat Yitro

The state of our country and the world continues to weigh heavily on my heart as we are all constantly consumed with news about ICE’s violent and scary presence in many of our cities, community members struggling to access food as SNAP benefit funding has been cut for many Americans,…

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Coming Together for a Better Future

My last 2 weeks were split between D.C. (at the annual Creating Change conference), and Tallahassee (for Equality Florida’s advocacy event, Pride at the Capitol) leading groups through meetings with legislators. The groups were democrats, republicans, Jews, Mormons, atheists, people with no party affiliation who have never voted before, queer…

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On Being a Tree: Tu BiShvat 5786

Have you heard about fairy rings? What sounds like a mythical event is actually a natural phenomenon of the coastal redwoods. When a giant redwood dies or is cut down new sprouts begin to form from its shallow root structure. The sprouts, having been nourished by the adult tree and…

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Keshet Stands with Trans Youth

Yesterday was a painful day, during an already painful week for our communities. Every hateful move, be it a House bill or a proposal from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, causes tremendous harm, regardless of its legality or enforceability. We know this. We feel it. To the…

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Trans Jewish Youth Are Ready for More 

Trans Jewish youth are ready for more. We are ready for a Jewish theology that does more than point to gender queerness in our history, but rather celebrates and encourages trans identity. We are ready for a Judaism that encourages us to be introspective. We are ready to think critically…

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Transness Is Our Salve

About a month ago, a dear friend gifted me a zine that put into words, and graphics, so many of the things I’ve experienced and loved about being trans but haven’t quite found the language for. The zine is called “Transness Is Our Salve.” The zine brings together years of…

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Keshet Conversations: On Writing — and Reading — Rom-Trom-Coms

Rachel Runya Katz (she/they) is a Seattle-based writer, scientist, and lover of stories that make us feel deeply. Their novels center on characters who hold layered identities, offering romance that is tender, complicated, and real. In this Keshet Conversation, we talk about writing from the intersections of queerness, Jewishness, Blackness,…

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