Rabbinic Reflections on Redemption

These Be’chol Lashon bloggers are taking to the bimah for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur

WATCH: 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.

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.

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

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

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.