VIDEO: A pre-Yom Kippur conversation with the criminal defense attorney and victims' rights advocate.

I know what you’re thinking. I don’t exactly have the “Jewish look.” You think of Jews as a people, with Jewish surnames, Jewish features, even our own genetic diseases. I understood what the community was telling me. That Jewish peoplehood was akin to race. Something immutable and hereditary. An exclusive club you had to be born into. And even though I had a Jewish father, with my Asian-American face, I would never really be Jewish.

Last year, I made my first visit to Mumbai to walk in my mom’s proverbial footsteps and discover my Indian-Jewish heritage.

The Jewish population is becoming more and more diverse, with Black and Brown people who are born in the faith or converts becoming more visible.

When the Jewish community learned that the March for Racial Justice was scheduled for Yom Kippur (September 30), outraged responses filled social media.

For this Laotian Jew, a rice recipe from his Buddhist childhood sustains him through Yom Kippur.

How a former Catholic became a believer and leader of collective Jewish prayers of repentance.

You came to me, now grown the morning after the election, and cried. This wasn’t supposed to happen, you said. I didn’t know what to say in return.

The Lemba Jews of Zimbabwe are having a hopeful New Year

After 24-plus hours of prayer and contemplation, without food or drink or even a good tooth scrubbing, a meal crafted with a tender stomach and sodium recovery in mind becomes a blessing for all.

Over the generations, our family tradition had been to go to the beach on the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Now that we live in disparate parts of Los Angeles, have differing synagogue schedules and levels of observance, our extended families (about 40 of us) come from throughout the greater Los Angeles area and meet at Venice Beach on the Sunday morning between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, bringing our beach chairs and something to share at our informal brunch that follows.