Uncategorized
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.
—
The post Jewish marriage rites are robust. Now a rabbi is innovating rituals for Jews who divorce. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Israeli tourists could soon be required to show 5 years of social media history to enter the US
(JTA) — Israelis seeking to visit the United States could soon be required to submit five years of social media history, according to draft regulations published by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security this week.
The regulations would apply to tourists from 42 countries, all allies of the United States, that are enrolled in the government’s Visa Waiver Program that allows passport holders to visit for up to 90 days without a visa.
Israel was first designated into the Visa Waiver Program by DHS in September 2023. The same year, Israeli tourism to the United States reached 376,439, followed by 417,077 in 2024, according to Statista.
The proposed regulations come as the Trump administration seeks to tighten borders. In April, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it would scrutinize the social media accounts of people applying to immigrate and international students for “antisemitic activity.” But the regulations mark a shift toward examining the records of people who are trying to visit, not move to, the United States.
In response to a question from a reporter Wednesday about whether the new requirement would cause a “decline in tourism,” President Donald Trump demurred.
“No. We’re doing so well,” Trump said. “We just want people to come over here, and safe. We want safety. We want security. We want to make sure we’re not letting the wrong people come enter our country.”
The new regulations would overhaul the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA, an online application that tourists included in the Visa Waiver Program have recently been required to submit before entering the country.
It was not immediately clear how tourists would submit their social media history under the proposed regulations, or even what such a request could constitute in an era when people maintain many social media accounts and post prolifically on them.
The DHS notice began a 60-day period for public comment on the regulations this week. A spokesperson from Customs and Border Protection told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a statement that the notice was preliminary.
“Nothing has changed on this front for those coming to the United States. This is not a final rule, it is simply the first step in starting a discussion to have new policy options to keep the American people safe,” the statement read. “The Department is constantly looking at how we vet those coming into the country, especially after the terrorist attack in Washington DC against our National Guard right before Thanksgiving.”
The Nov. 26 shooting of two National Guard members by a suspect who is an Afghan national triggered several restrictions on immigration by the Trump administration. The suspect entered the country legally and has not been publicly alleged to have had a social media track record that might have elicited alarm.
The potential regulation comes as Israeli soldiers have faced scrutiny for their posts on social media during the war in Gaza, with some soldiers fleeing countries they have visited that are less friendly than the United States to Israel over the threat of potential war crime inquiries.
The post Israeli tourists could soon be required to show 5 years of social media history to enter the US appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
6 hostages murdered in Gaza lit Hanukkah candles in captivity, newly released footage shows
(JTA) — Two months after they were taken hostage, and eight months before they would be murdered, the Israelis who would later be known as the “Beautiful Six” were herded into a new section of the Hamas tunnel where they had been held.
There, their captors took hours of video of the young adults as they lit a makeshift menorah, sang traditional Hanukkah songs and, after being prompted, offered holiday greetings to the camera.
“Where are the sufganiyot?” asked Eden Yerushalmi.
“We’re waiting for Roladin in the land [of Israel],” joked Hersh Goldberg-Polin, referring to one of the most prominent purveyors of Hanukkah donuts in Israel.
The other hostages — Ori Danino, Almog Sarusi, Alex Lubanov and Carmel Gat — sit with their fellow captives. Sarusi appears visibly distressed as he makes the blessing over the candles, and the cameraman captures wrenching comments as the six young adults sing the song “Maoz Tzur.”
Goldberg-Polin explains that there are six verses in the song, “one for each time they tried to kill us and failed.” Yerushalmi responds, “We need to add another verse.”
In another video, Lubanov is instructed to shave the heads of his fellow male hostages. While shaving Danino, he recalls the movie “The Pianist,” set during the Holocaust, and says he is like a barber in that setting.
“This situation is not that far from the Holocaust,” Danino replies, looking at a mirror that a third person, possibly from Hamas, is holding up.
Some of the footage appeared intended to fuel the kind of hostage videos that Hamas released intermittently during the war, but Hamas never put it out. Instead, the footage was recovered by the IDF about three months ago during a raid on a hospital in Khan Younis and was delivered to the families of the hostages about six weeks ago, according to YNet News. It was released publicly on Thursday.
The video adds to accounts that many of the hostages sought to maintain Jewish practices and traditions while in captivity, though it is the first to suggest that such practices might at times have been facilitated or coerced by their captors.
“Lighting Hanukkah candles in that dark place captures the essence of the Jewish spirit: light prevailing over darkness,” the hostages’ families said in a statement released by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
“Hamas filmed these videos as propaganda, but the humanity of the beautiful six shines through this footage. It is stronger than any terrorist organization. These videos bear witness to evil and failure. The entire world must see our loved ones in these moments, their unity, strength, and humanity even in the darkest times. They were taken alive, they survived in captivity, and they should have come home alive,” the statement continues. “Nothing will bring our loved ones back to life. Only bringing the truth to light, only genuine accountability at the national level, can bring justice and healing to all our hearts.”
We will never forgive and we will never forget how our hostages were treated by Hamas in Gaza.
Despite the horrific torture and humiliation, our brave and courageous hostages never lost hope, and even continued to light Hanukkah candles to bring light into a world of darkness. pic.twitter.com/wv3PSnbQZk
— Danny Danon 🇮🇱 דני דנון (@dannydanon) December 11, 2025
The release of the footage has renewed grief over the murder of the hostages, which closely followed the collapse of ceasefire negotiations in July 2024. Some of the hostages, including Goldberg-Polin, who lost an arm on Oct. 7, had been on the list for release had a deal come together. Since then, Israeli officials have counted the hostages, whose bodies were retrieved soon after they were killed, among those rescued by the Israeli military.
“What heroes,” Goldberg-Polin’s mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, told Channel 12, according to the Times of Israel. “Six young luminous people who did everything right and they stayed alive and they did their part, and for us to claim we brought them back, in bags, bags of children to their parents, please don’t count Hersh among the people you saved.”
News of their deaths triggered mass protests in Israel opposing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to reach a deal the month before. In September 2024, Netanyahu issued an apology to the hostages’ families.
The video comes as the body of the last remaining hostage in Gaza, Ran Gvili, has yet to be returned to Israel, two months after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that required the release of all of the remaining hostages. Twenty living hostages and 27 deceased hostages, most but not all killed on Oct. 7, have since been returned.
The video appeared to be taken months before the group of six were killed in Hamas captivity in Rafah on August 29, 2024, shortly after the collapse of ceasefire negotiations with Hamas that could have led to the release of some of them.
The post 6 hostages murdered in Gaza lit Hanukkah candles in captivity, newly released footage shows appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
How Montana teachers use a Hanukkah kit to teach students who’ve never met a Jew
In Montana, students across the state — from Hutterite colonies to Native American reservations — are learning about Hanukkah in school: playing dreidel, lighting candles, and reading a picture book that tells the true story of Billings residents who united against antisemitism.
That’s thanks to the Montana Jewish Project, which is in its third year of distributing 50 “Hanukkah curriculum boxes” to public school teachers around the state, many in rural areas with few to no Jewish students in their classrooms. Teachers who sign up for the box receive it free of charge.
“A teacher at a school with a large Mennonite population went out of her way to email us and say, Thank you so much. This resonated so much with my students,” said Rebecca Stanfel, executive director of the Montana Jewish Project. “It makes a lot of sense, because the lesson plan is really about accepting everyone in your classroom, whatever their faith tradition.”
Montana, home to the most hate groups of any state and a Jewish population of a few thousand, tends to be the subject of alarming headlines: “Neo-Nazis urge armed march to harass Montana Jews” and “Jewish man attacked in Montana by self-proclaimed Nazi on Oct. 7,” most recently.
But the state has also been a national model for how to effectively push back against hate. In 1993 in Billings, neo-Nazis threw a brick through a 6-year-old Jewish boy’s bedroom window, which was displaying a menorah. In response, the Billings Gazette printed a full-page picture of a menorah for readers to cut out and tape to their windows. Thousands posted the menorahs to show solidarity.
So when it came to teaching Montana’s students about Hanukkah, Stanfel knew she wanted to go beyond the Maccabees and include that local story — one that counters common stereotypes about Montana as a white Christian nationalist safe haven. Each Hanukkah box includes a copy of The Christmas Menorahs: How a Town Fought Hate, which recounts the Billings story, along with suggested discussion questions.
One prompt asks students: “What would you have done if you were in Billings at the time? Would you have encouraged your family to display a menorah? Why or why not?”
Heather McCartney-Duty, a fifth grade teacher at an elementary school in the city of Choteau, population 1,700, knows of three Jewish students at her school — and they’re all siblings. That made it all the more important to teach about Hanukkah, she said, both to educate non-Jews and help her Jewish students feel included.
With the help of Montana Jewish Project’s box, she read her students the picture book, taught them to play dreidel, lit candles, decorated the classroom in blue and white, and even displayed a “mensch on the bench.”
“The news stories that hit out of Montana are, Oh, the Unabomber. Oh, the Freemen. What crazy thing has Montana done today?” McCartney-Duty said. “So to have this massive effort towards pushing back against hate and pushing back against bullies, it’s very significant to kids that it happened in Montana.”
Another teacher using the Hanukkah box, Courtney Hamblin, is adapting the lesson for her older students at a high school in Billings. She’s coupling the story with watching the PBS documentary Not in Our Town and reading newspaper archives about the display of solidarity.
That lesson will prepare her students to read Night by Elie Wiesel in the coming months, she said, helping them become more familiar with Jewish references in the book.
To her, the Billings story shows students “that something local can become national,” Hamblin said. “I’m trying to teach them that little acts of kindness can balloon into these big things.”
The post How Montana teachers use a Hanukkah kit to teach students who’ve never met a Jew appeared first on The Forward.