Currents

When 5-year-old Eli Gerston wanted to wear a dress to preschool, her mother Jodi worried whether Eli would be accepted by the teachers or bullied by other children. To calm those fears, staff at Yavneh Day School in Los Gatos, California, participated in a training led by Keshet—a Jewish organization dedicated to equipping institutions like this day school with skills and knowledge to build LGBTQ-affirming communities. ...

With so much uncertainty about what college life will look like this fall, an increasing number of high school graduates are opting for a gap year. A gap year provides students with the opportunity to defer college for one year to continue to learn and grow. For Jewish teens, living and studying in Israel can fulfill a dream of spending time in the Jewish homeland and deepening one’s connection with their faith. Yonah...

Jewish teen creates COVID-19 website. Courtesy: Avi Schiffmann People searching for the most up-to-date statistics on the Coronavirus outbreak need to look no further than ncov2019.live—a website created by Avi Schiffmann, a 17-year-old Jewish teenager living near Seattle, Washington. It’s currently a top-visited site with more than 100 million visitors—60 percent of whom live outside the U.S. Avi came up with the ...

Jewish tradition has long taught us the importance of preserving and protecting the planet. As Psalm 24 says, “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers,” making any act that damages the earth an offense against the creation of God. In 2020, as millions of acres in Australia have burned (and are still ...

It’s said that you can’t truly understand and empathize with someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes. While that wasn’t possible, 43 staff and teens traveling on one of the USY on Wheels Classic buses this summer got close while revisiting the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which was the target of the worst anti-Semitic mass shooting in U.S. history last October that left 11 members dead ...

When Genea Moore was a college student in the early 2000s, scouring her local paper for job opportunities, she had no idea her enthusiasm and open mindedness would land her, a Jewish woman of color who converted in 2015, a job at a synagogue that would prove life-changing in so many ways. Now executive director at Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, New York, Genea’s career in Judaism—which ultimately led to her conversion—...

Members of West End Synagogue and the local Muslim community In light of the devastating attacks directed at Jewish and Muslim communities in recent months, one synagogue saw an opportunity to bring both groups together in a powerful display of peace and unity. In late May, Rabbi Joshua Kullock of West End Synagogue in Nashville, Tennessee, invited the local Muslim community to the synagogue for an iftar, a meal th...

A little more than two weeks after lighting the candles for Yom HaShoah on May 1, Temple Israel in Sharon, Massachusetts, will be concluding an incredible Holocaust Memorial Scrolls Trust restoration project that will ensure a valuable piece of Jewish history will be cherished for generations to come. On May 19, the synagogue will officially bring back to life a more than 200-year-old Torah scroll rescued from the Holo...

For the 28 athletes who represented Team Israel at the 2017 World Baseball Classic, an international 16-team tournament held once every four years, it was never just about the game of baseball. Even when the team, which entered the tournament ranked 41st in the world and were dubbed “MLB wannabes and has-beens”, defeated then-3rd in the world South Korea in the opening game in Seoul, followed by three straight wins agai...

Add These 10 Jewish Films from 2018 to Your Queue For movie lovers across the country, the first few weeks in February are traditionally marked by a binge-watch of all the Oscar-nominated films in preparation for the big night—this year, on February 24th. As you plan your weekend viewing, here are some movies to consider adding to your queue. Read on for an article that was recently featured in Tablet magazine about Jewi...