Making Mensches: Not Your Bubbe's Torah School

Join the Making Mensches team (Elana, Jesi/Rocki, and Jessie) and Rachel Joy (they/she) for the third episode of our Judaism and Abolition series!  Rachel is an abolitionist social worker, lay leader, and organizer. Rachel has been teaching, leading Jewish services, and community building with folks inside jails for the past five years and spent the past 9 months organizing with Matir Asurim: The...

Join the Making Mensches team (Elana, Jesi/Rocki, and Jessie) and Ayeola Omolara Kaplan for the second episode of our Judaism and Abolition series! Ayeola is a revolutionary surrealist artist who creates artwork that synchronizes abolitionist dreams and experiential reality. Ayeola’s craft is inspired by her Jewish eco-spirituality and the divinity that seeds the intersecting threads of disability...

As a note, we discuss colonial violence in its many forms - including sexual and racial violence - in this episode. In the liberatory tradition of pesach, the Making Mensches team (Elana, Jesi/Rocki, and Jessie) bring you the first episode in what will be an ongoing series on Judaism and Abolition. In this first episode, we discuss the many overlaps between Judaism and Abolition, how abolition sho...

We are so excited to share this podcast mashup with you! Elana, Jessie, and Jesi of Making Mensches in conversation with the incredible Lexi Kohanski of Torah for Trans Lives (T4Torah). In addition to her podcast, Lexi is also the Director of Online Learning at the Torah Studio and is currently designing Worlds To Come,  a first-of-its-kind tabletop roleplaying game to teach Biblical Hebrew. Obvio...

After a brief pause, we're back and better than ever with the poetic presence of Aiyana Masla ! In this episode, Elana, Jessie, and Jesi talk to interdisciplinary artist, intergenerational community member, and an anti-bias educator ⁠ Aiyana Masla (she/her) about her debut poetry collection ⁠The Underdream . We talk with her about the inspiration for and process of writing The Underdream, the idea...

In this episode, we talk to writer, performance artist, and organizational consultant Alissa Schwartz (she/her) and book worker, artist, and publisher Patrick Barber (he/they) about Alissa’s book Ancestral Performance Art , published through Patrick’s publishing company - Impeller Press . We talk with them about so many things - but it centers around how we can build deeper relationships with our...

Join Jessie (she/her) and guest interviewer (and beloved Making Mensches collaborator) Jesi (fae/they) for their conversation with artist Liz Awesome (he/him) 🎨 Jessie, Jesi, and Liz talk all things trash, art, and Judaism - as well as ways to infuse our lives with liberation, anger, and grief. As Liz says, “We already have everything we need, and we’re throwing it away in the trash.” They discus...

Hi Mensches! In this episode we’re joined by Wes (Wendy Elisheva Somerson) , author of new book An Anti-Zionist Path to Embodied Jewish Healing: Somatic Practices to Heal Historical Wounds, Unlearn Oppression, and Create a Liberated World to Come. This is a rich conversation filled with so much wisdom from Wes talking about trauma and somatic healing, taking actionable steps to address fear and sh...

Welcome back, Mensches! Join us for a conversation with Deatra Cohen and Adam Siegal, co-authors of Ashkenazi Herbalism and new book Woven Roots: Recovering the Healing Plant Traditions of Jews and Their Neighbors in Eastern Europe. We discuss how Deatra and Adam began doing this work, the main differences between Woven Roots and Ashkenazi Herbalism, communal care in the Pale, the process of recov...

Join Making Mensches for our special conversation with Binya and Xava, creators of Shel Maala Yeshiva - a digital-first queer Yeshiva! We talk about the importance of queer, anti-zionist, accessible Torah and Talmud study, the rewards and challenges of this work, abolitionist and anti-zionist Torah, and so much more. We can’t wait for you to listen, and we hope you’ll join us for our joint event o...

We hope you're as excited as we are for this conversation with Joey Ramona , iconic Toronto based punk rock tattooer, visual artist, and a self-described “weird Jewish punk guy.” We talk with Joey about being an anti-zionist Jewish tattooer, about how tattoos can help people deepen their connection to Judaism, about the concept of doikayt and researching ashkenazi tradition, about mutual aid a...

Join us as we talk to Stephanie (they/them), founder of T aste of Olam Haba , a vibrant Jewish community in Central Arkansas founded in 2021. We discuss the growth of Taste of Olam Haba and what building this community has looked like, what it's been like to engage with the rise and presence of fascism in the South, backlash from zionist Jewish community, and much more. Thank you to Stephanie...

Join us for an extra special episode with ⁠Ayeola Omolara Kaplan⁠ and ⁠ ⁠Hadar Cohen⁠ , two of the talented artists who created pieces for the ⁠⁠DWELL in Revolution project . In this episode, we discuss their creation processes, the ancestors that they depicted, why this project is important, and everything in between. Listen to the full episode to hear ⁠Shelby Handler⁠ reading their piece from DW...

Join us for an extra special episode with Micah Bazant and Ollie Schwartz , two of the main organizers of the DWELL in Revolution project, as we discuss the creation process and intention behind the zine, in addition to discussing the complexities and joy that are a part of organizing for our movement.  So much work went into this beautiful project, a project that enables folks to learn about and...

For this episode, we are joined by ⁠Ariella Aïsha Azoulay , who graciously talks with us about her recent book, “The Jewelers of the Ummah: A Potential History of the Jewish Muslim World.” Ariella is a film essayist, theorist, curator of archives, and professor currently teaching Modern Culture and Media in the Department of Comparative Literature at Brown University . Ariella talks us through Jew...

we're back after our mid-season hiatus with our first episode in a long time that's just Jessie and Elana! we talk about the present moment and some of our upcoming events, and at the end is a rewind to our Instagram Live episode on tu b'shvat from 2022 (which was somehow THREE years ago). we've obviously grown and learned so much since then but enjoy our baby selves talking tu bish join us for ou...

In our midseason finale, we are joined by Eliana Rubin , who talks (among many, many other things) about their new book, “Taking the State out of the Body: A Guide to Embodied Resistance to Zionism.” Eliana builds transgressive relationships with bodies, land, and lineage through their work as a somatic practitioner, politicized facilitator, anti-Zionist organizer, full spectrum doula, land stewar...

Golems, Dybukks, Psychedelics, oh my! Today we are joined by Julie Weitz (she/her) - diasporic performance artist, Fulbright Scholar, and co-creator of the Tzitzit Project - some of you may know her as @MyGolem_is_here . In this episode, Julie reflects on her time in Poland and the ways that we can reconnect with our ancestral homeland outside. Julie talks about recent and past projects, what brou...

We are joined by the brilliant Jules Pashall (they/he) for this episode! Jules is a fat, white, trans/queer Jew who holds space as a somatic, creative and spiritual practitioner. Their offerings are built on the belief that undoing violent hierarchies and how they live in our bodies is part of the path of soul retrieval and collective liberation. For 15 years, they have been exploring fat as a res...

In this episode, we talk to Dr. Oren Kroll-Zeldin , who is the assistant director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco where he is also an assistant professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. Oren recently published his first book, “Unsettled: American Jews and the Movement for Justice in Palestine.” You can buy the book he...

Join us as we talk to Ezra Star (he/they) and Jen Deerinwater (Jen), two organizers with Disability Divest , as we talk about Disability Divest and their work, how genocide is a mass disabling event, and how Ezra combines his drag and Judaism. Ezra, also known by their drag name - Neuro Cosmos - is a queer, anti-zionist, disabled drag artist in DC and one of the organizers of Disability Divest. Je...

Join us as we talk to ⁠R abbi Chel Mandell (they/them). Chel is the founder and rabbi of TzimTzum Community in Santa Cruz, CA. Tzimtzum is a community of queer, trans, and gender-expansive Jews centering the Jewish diasporist experience; refocusing on Jewish tradition, ritual, and community gathering in Santa Cruz.  We talk with Rabbi Chel about molding Jewish tradition for our communities, center...

Join us as we talk to Leora Fridman (she/her). Leora is a Jewish writer whose work is concerned with issues of identity, care, ability, and embodiment. Leora is the author of upcoming book “ Bound Up : On Kink, Power, and Belonging” which is “an autotheoretical journey through bondage, domination, and intimacy, [in which she] uncovers how Jewish historical trauma can be challenged and explored in...

Join us as we talk to Chaia (she/her), a Jewish dance music artist who makes Kleztronica - electronic and techno music that uses samples from yiddish and klezmer music. Chaia’s first single is out TODAY and we are so excited to share our conversation with her where she talks all things yiddish, techno, kleztronica, and everything in between. Listen to Chaia's new single, ⁠ Borough Park⁠ , out...

[This conversation was recorded live on 8/18/24 as a part of the Embodied Resistance event.] Join Making Mensches for a conversation with Leilah Feinstein and Ayelet Cartolina, discussing Tu B'av, s*x workers in Judaism, and how s*x workers play a role in our fight for liberation. [The images mentioned by Ayelet can be found here !] Ticket sales from this event allowed us to raise $308 toward...