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Jewish marriage rites are robust. Now a rabbi is innovating rituals for Jews who divorce.
(J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — For Lyssa Jaye, throwing the wood chips into the Tuolumne River felt in many ways familiar to the tashlich ritual performed on Rosh Hashanah. But rather than casting off her sins, she was tossing away feelings: shame, resentment, anger.
They were the emotions that had taken residence inside Jaye since her divorce eight years ago, along with a sense of failure. And she had come to a Jewish retreat to rid herself of them.
“I’ve been carrying around these feelings for years now,” Jaye said. “I have a completely different life now, and I needed to let them go.”
Jaye was taking part in Divorce & Discovery: A Jewish Healing Retreat, the first-ever gathering in a series conceived by Rabbi Deborah Newbrun as part of her training, held this month at Camp Tawonga in the Bay Area.
One of the requirements at the Pluralistic Rabbinical Seminary, where Newbrun was ordained last year in the first graduating class, “was that each of us had to do an innovation, or something that didn’t exist before,” she said.
Newbrun, who directed Camp Tawonga for more than two decades, has been recognized for innovative programming for such achievements as initiating Tawonga’s LGBT family camp and founding its wilderness department. She even won a prestigious 2018 Covenant Award for Jewish educators. But as she started thinking about how to fulfill the seminary requirement, her first thought was, “I don’t have any ideas left in me.”
Then she began reflecting back on her divorce years earlier. She remembered how she had approached numerous rabbis and colleagues in search of Jewish support around the grief she felt. And how they all came up empty-handed.
That’s when she realized: “I can put together something meaningful and helpful for people going through divorce.”
From the moment participants arrived at Camp Tawonga near Yosemite, they knew this would be no ordinary Jewish retreat. At the opening event, all of the facilitators, several clergy members and a therapist shared their own divorce stories, “to set the standard and normalize vulnerability, transparent sharing and establish that we all know what it’s like to have a marriage end,” Newbrun said.
Most participants were from the Bay Area, with a handful from farther afield. They were in different life stages, from those in their 30s dealing with custody battles over young children, to empty nesters in their 60s. Some had separated from their partners years ago, while others had gone their separate ways more recently. Some split amicably; a good many did not. But all had come up against a lack of Jewish resources or support when navigating this major life passage.
Rabbi Deborah Newbrun, the founder of Divorce and Discovery at the recent weekend. (Photo/Margot Yecies)
Jaye said she left no stone unturned in seeking out support, an experience Newbrun said she heard echoed by many participants. Jaye attended a retreat at a local meditation center. She read self-help books. She joined a support group for divorcees. She went to therapy.
And while they all helped in different ways, none was specifically Jewish.
“I knew I needed some kind of spiritual way forward,” she said. “I needed to do this in my own language, with my own people.”
Even though the retreat came nearly a decade years after Jaye’s divorce, “it was profound. It felt like coming home, and that this is what I needed all along. This model could be extremely powerful. The rituals we did could be taught in rabbinical schools or to Jewish educators so it’s not just ‘sign this get and goodbye,’” she said, referring to the Jewish divorce document.
Rather than create new rituals, Newbrun and her facilitators took familiar Jewish rituals and retooled them.
The tashlich ritual, led by Newbrun and Maggid Jhos Singer, had a call-and-response portion, and participants also could call out what they personally wanted to cast off. “One person ‘tashliched’ their wedding ring into the river and felt it was such a perfect place to let it go!” said Newbrun.
An optional immersion in the Tuolumne River followed. Jaye, who years ago went to the mikvah alone, with only the attendant there for support, said there was no comparison with how much more healing it felt performing the ritual in community.
A session on sitting shiva for one’s marriage, led by Rabbi Sue Reinhold, allowed participants to share and mourn the loss of what they missed most about being married. That resonated for Robyn Lieberman, who does not attend synagogue services but went to every session at the retreat on innovating Jewish rituals.
“I did need to mourn what I’m losing,” said Lieberman, who had been married to an Israeli. “We had a very public, open house around Jewish religion, and a constant Israeli identity, which fulfilled my Jewish needs.”
Rabbi Jennie Chabon of Congregation B’nai Tikvah in Walnut Creek reflected on how much time she has spent with couples preparing for their wedding day, both in premarital counseling and in planning the event, and on how many marriage-related topics are covered in rabbinical school.
“And when it comes to divorce? Nothing,” Chabon said. “We’re all out here on our own trying to figure out how to wander through it.”
She was tasked with creating a havdalah ceremony with a divorce theme, in which she reimagined the wine, spices and flame typically used to mark a division between Shabbat and the rest of the week.
“There’s a fire that burns within each of us, and that flame doesn’t go out,” said Chabon, 47. “When you’re married for a long time, your identity, energy and spirit is so woven into that of another.” Her ritual was meant to affirm that “you are on fire just as you are, and you’re a blessing as an individual in the world. You don’t need a partnership or family to be whole.”
Even the Shabbat Torah service was on theme.
Rabbi Jennie Chabon reads from the Torah during a service at the Divorce and Discovery retreat. (Photo/Margot Yecies)
Rather than focusing on Noah’s emergence from the ark after the flood, Chabon spoke about a lesser-known section of the week’s Torah portion, in which Noah builds a fire and offers a sacrifice to God. But if the entire earth was drenched from the flood, Chabon asked, what did he burn?
“The answer is he must have burned the ark,” Chabon said in recalling her talk at the retreat. “What does that mean for people going through this incredibly painful and tender time in their lives, when what was once a safe container and secure and protected them, they have to burn it down in order to start life anew?
“This is a perfect rebirth metaphor. But what’s being birthed is a new self and a new identity in the world as a single person,” Chabon said. “You have to release and let go of what was to make room for the blessing for who you’re going to become.”
At a ritual “hackathon” workshop presented by Newbrun, participants suggested standing during Kaddish at synagogue to mourn their marriages, and offering their children a Friday night blessing that they are whole whether they are at either parent’s home.
Not all of the sessions centered on Jewish ritual. In a session on the Japanese art of kintsugi, or mending broken pottery, attendees made vessels whose cracks they fixed with putty, symbolizing that beauty can be found in imperfection. Many danced in a Saturday-night silent disco.
Everyone was assigned to a small group, or havurah, that they met with daily, so they could establish deeper connections within the larger cohort.
“To have gone through some of these practices was very meaningful to me,” said Lieberman. “It’s not like I put a seal on my marriage and wrapped it up in a bow and put it behind me, but it was a nice catharsis for completing a transition that I’ve been very thoughtful about.”
Newbrun aims to recreate the retreat in communities around the country. Both Jaye and Lieberman said they found value in being in community with people “who get it,” without the judgment they often face.
“I was a little skeptical that all I’d have in common with people was that we were Jewish and divorced, and that that wouldn’t be enough for me to form a relationship,” said Lieberman. “But having the willingness to talk about it and explore it did open up a lot of very vulnerable conversations. The expert facilitation really made us think about the fact that divorce is not about your paper [certificate], it’s about reexamining the direction of your life and who you want to be.”
A version of this piece originally ran in J. The Jewish News of Northern California, and is reprinted with permission.
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Circumcision could be ‘child abuse’ if done wrong, UK prosectors warn after deaths
(JTA) — British Jews are weighing in after authorities said they are considering deeming some circumcisions “a form of child abuse” following deaths from the procedure.
The Crown Prosecution Service, the region’s chief agency for criminal prosecutions, said that while male circumcision is not a crime, it may constitute child abuse “if carried out incorrectly or in inappropriate circumstances,” according to a draft document seen by the Guardian.
This document, which looked at circumcision as a potential “harmful practice” alongside virginity testing, breast flattening and exorcisms, has driven heated debate among Jewish and Muslim leaders since it was revealed this week.
The draft guidance follows a coroner’s report from Dec. 28 about Mohamed Abdisamad, a 6-month-old boy who died in London from a streptococcus infection caused by his circumcision in 2023.
The coroner warned of “a risk that future deaths could occur unless action is taken,” noting that “any individual may conduct a Non-Therapeutic Male Circumcision (NTMC) without any prior training.” He said there was no system to ensure that people who conduct religious circumcisions have accreditation or meet requirements for infection control.
In the past, another coroner raised similar concerns over the 2014 death of Oliver Asante-Yeboah, who developed sepsis after his circumcision by a rabbi. Male circumcision was a factor in 14 deaths in England and Wales since 2001, half of them men over 18 and half boys under 18, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Unlicensed circumcisions are a subject of mounting scrutiny in Europe, raising alarm in some Jewish communities. In May, Belgian police raided three homes in Antwerp as part of an investigation into illegal ritual circumcisions. And in 2024, a rabbi from London was arrested and imprisoned in Ireland for allegedly performing a circumcision without required credentials.
Some Jewish leaders swiftly condemned the Crown Prosecution Service document.
“Calling circumcision child abuse is fundamentally antisemitic,” said Gary Mond, founder of the Jewish National Assembly, to the Jewish News Syndicate.
Jonathan Arkush, co-chair of the Milah UK group that advocates for Jewish circumcision, told the Guardian that the document’s language about circumcision was “misleading” and he would be in touch with the prosecutors.
“The incidence of complications in circumcision performed in the Jewish community is vanishingly rare,” he said. “Circumcision is a core part of our identity.”
Other Jewish voices have urged action to enforce medically safe circumcisions. Rabbi Jonathan Romain, who oversees Reform Judaism’s religious court in Britain, said it was “time to clamp down on rogue practitioners” and called for mandatory training, monitoring and annual reports on the practice.
“Given that it is a longstanding and important tradition among Jews, Muslims and various other cultures, the best way forward is to only permit circumcision if it is practised by someone specifically qualified for it and who belongs to a nationally accredited scheme,” Romain said in a letter to the Guardian.
The Muslim Council of Britain also told the Guardian that it supports strengthening safeguards.
“Male circumcision is a lawful practice in the UK with recognised medical, religious and cultural foundations, and it should not be characterised in itself as child abuse,” said the group. “However, where procedures are carried out irresponsibly, without proper safeguards, and cause harm, they may rightly fall within the scope of criminal law.”
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Tulsa’s Jewish community pushes back on Oklahoma Jewish charter school proposal
(JTA) — Leaders of Tulsa’s Jewish community are publicly pushing back against a proposal to open a publicly funded Jewish charter school in Oklahoma, saying the plan was developed without meaningful local input and could destabilize existing Jewish institutions.
In a joint statement released this week, senior figures from Tulsa’s synagogues, Jewish day school and community organizations said they opposed efforts by an outside group to create what would become the only religious school in the country entirely funded by taxpayers — an arrangement whose constitutionality is contested.
“We are deeply concerned that an external Jewish organization would pursue such an initiative in Oklahoma without first engaging in meaningful consultation with the established Oklahoma Jewish community,” the statement said. “To bypass community consultation in favor of an externally driven initiative is a serious error.”
The statement was signed by leaders from across Tulsa’s Jewish community, including the executive director of the Mizel Jewish Community Day School, rabbis from two Tulsa synagogues, and the head of Jewish Tulsa, the local federation.
The response follows an application by the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation to open a statewide online charter school that would combine Oklahoma academic standards with daily Jewish religious instruction.
Ben Gamla was founded by former U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, who told the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board on Monday that many families in the state are looking for a religious education option.
“There are a lot of parents that are looking for a sort of a faith-based, rigorous academic program,” Deutsch said.
Tulsa Jewish leaders rejected that claim. In their statement, they said Oklahoma already has Jewish schools and synagogue programs and that they were never consulted about any unmet need.
“Our local boards, organizations and donors have invested heavily in our local Jewish educational system through a dedication to learning,” the statement said, citing the day school and other community programs.
The application also raises a larger legal issue that board members openly acknowledged.
At Monday’s meeting, board chairman Brian Shellem said there was an “elephant in the room” given the board’s recent approval of another religious charter school — the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School — which was later ruled unconstitutional by the Oklahoma Supreme Court and left unresolved after a 4-4 split at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ben Gamla’s lawyers say that split leaves the door open.
“The exclusion of religious charters based on faith violates [U.S.] Supreme Court precedents that ensure equal access to public education for everyone, regardless of religion,” Eric Baxter, a senior lawyer at Becket, the religious-liberty firm representing Ben Gamla, said in a statement.
Baxter said Peter Deutsch consulted with local rabbis and parents during visits to Oklahoma in 2023.
“Contrary to claims of no engagement, Peter Deutsch consulted with local rabbis and parents during exploratory visits in 2023,” Baxter said. “Far from bypassing the community, Peter’s proposal builds on those consultations to expand faith-based choices for families, and we urge the Board to assess it on its merits.”
When asked who specifically Deutsch consulted with and whether here has been any consultation since then, Becket did not provide details. Instead, a firm spokesperson accused local Jewish institutions of trying to block competition.
“Sometimes, institutions that see potential new competitors will attempt to keep those competitors out of the market for educational providers,” said Ryan Colby, a spokesperson for Becket. He added, “While the Jewish Federation is entitled to its own opinions, it does not speak for all Jews.”
Colby added that Deutsch has spoken with Jews who support the proposal and said he expects non-Jewish families would also enroll.
The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board is expected to vote on the application as early as soon as its next monthly meeting on Feb. 19.
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Travel disrupted, fears elevated as Israel weathers uncertainty over potential US strike on Iran
(JTA) — Several European carriers canceled flights to Tel Aviv on Wednesday as turmoil over a potential U.S. strike on Iran roiled the skies and elevated fears in Israel.
President Donald Trump has threatened for days to intervene in Iran if the government proceeds with plans to execute protesters who have staged weeks of demonstrations against the autocratic religious regime there. Thousands of protesters have been killed in the streets, according to both government and opposition sources, and Tehran had planned a first execution of a protester arrested during the demonstrations on Thursday.
That execution was postponed amid sharp pressure from the United States, as signs piled up that Trump may plan to go forward with a military option against Iran. U.S. planes have moved within the region, several countries including the United States have urged nonessential personnel to leave the region and Iran briefly closed its airspace on Wednesday night.
On Thursday, reports emerged that Gulf states had talked Trump out of an imminent attack. But the uncertainty — and the recollection that Trump had appeared to waffle before striking Iran last year — has escalated fears in Israel, which is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s sworn enemy.
Iran and Israel fought a deadly 12-day war last year. This time, Israel and Iran have reportedly exchanged assurances, via Russia, that they would not strike each other first, but Iranian officials have said they could attack Israel alongside U.S. targets if Trump strikes Iran.
Daily life in Israel has not been interrupted, but Israelis are on high alert for a potential rehash of last year, when Iranian missiles sent them running to safe rooms multiple times and killed dozens of people.
So far, Lufthansa canceled some flights, then announced that it would revamp its schedule to prevent its employees from being in Israel overnight, when any Iranian retaliation is seen as more likely. A flight from New York was delayed on Wednesday while its carrier reportedly changed its route, igniting fears that the tensions had moved into a new phase. And some travelers have opted not to press on with their Israel trips, fearing being stuck in the country if conditions deteriorate.
At the same time, Israelis and Jews around the world, including tens of thousands of Persian Jews who fled following the ascendance of the Islamic Republic in 1979, are rooting for the protesters and against the regime. The American Jewish Committee issued a statement late Wednesday in support of the protesters.
“The international community has a moral responsibility to act in solidarity with the Iranian people and to advance a safer region and a more peaceful Middle East,” the organization said.
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