Issue 24
Spring 2025
ARTS & KVETCH: Spring Ahead
With Passover coming up next weekend and warmer weather approaching, hopefully it’s the beginning of a season of positivity for all of you.
NCJWC-Toronto Delivers Sustenance This Passover Season
We want to encourage the young people and newcomers in our community to feel a sense of responsibility for caring for other Jewish people, which I think is always important, and it's particularly important at this time.
Choosing My Hebrew Name
As we sit down with loved ones for the Seder this year, let us reflect on how we as Jews can seek a more inclusive and compassionate world. These are ancient teachings that we must uphold, and I thank Tzipporah for showing me the way.
Guarding the Dead
. . .when reciting prayer or psalms scribed centuries ago, I don’t feel connected spiritually, emotionally, and mentally, because the words aren’t mine, they’re written by cisgender men who wouldn’t have made room for my spiritual voice. That’s why I want to insert myself and my authentic voice into these rituals to make them more inclusive.
The Labkovski Project and the Rally for Historical Preservation
There is undoubtedly a personal responsibility to educate oneself; we cannot wait for the opportunity to be educated. Without acknowledgement and remembrance, we risk the possibility of history repeating itself.
Beyond the Firstborns: A Search for an Egalitarianism for All
I want a feminist egalitarianism where I can be with women who cry out in pain, where there are no steps that those who are vulnerable must take to earn their fullest lives.
Portaging Through Aaron Kreuter’s Camp Burntshore: An Interview
I miss that summer, the summer of 2013 on Lake Burntshore, this place that I half made up from experiences and also from what I’ve read and seen.
Strawberry Rhubarb Mini Cheesecakes for Shavuot and Springtime
No fruit says “spring is here” to me more than rhubarb.
Foot Forward
I was younger than adult, older than child / Halfway between obedient and wild
6 x 3: The Complicated Story of a Simple Cake
Elisabeth recorded the recipes on stolen scraps of paper, and a friend created a cover. At a time when everything had been taken from them, they still found a way to create.
Rachel
What can I say, except that I came / from that same Rachel whose scarf fluttered free / as a nomad’s banner in desert wind?
Three Works of Art on Passover
Every day I am inspired by the rich beauty that grows in this sunny, dry desert climate. The riotous colours of the cypress trees, Jerusalem stone, Bougainvillea, and the terracotta roofs.
Hebraic Things: A Crossword
Submerged electricity generators.
The Woman of Valour in Three Poems
Quill, she sketches faithful fantasies in circles, / Rends ancient versions of her foremothers’ / Secrets places them at the proper time on her / Tongue.