Topic: Hakhel Blog

by Elie Benhiyoun Divorced with three kids and nowhere to go, Sara made the trek north to Afula. When she arrived, the first thing she did was get on a bike, find whatever odds and ends she could get her hands on and sell them at the shuk, the local market. She did this every day for a few years until she was finally able to have a stall of her own. Today, 35 years later, this impossibly slight woman with an indomitable spirit told us her story, some of us with tears in our eyes. The Afula Market, or “shuk” in Hebrew, was the heartbeat of this small northern town only a few decades ago. It was utterly vanquished by the neighboring department stores and has since become a hive of underworld activity. Thankfully, Sivan, an Afula local artist, didn’t see it that way. These dilapidated walls were the ideal canvas for art and the opportunity to empower creative teenagers in Afula. It now boasts a dazzling display of murals, making the shuk burst with life. We had the privilege to speak with Sivan and her friends Gili and Mor on our first stop after a hearty Israeli breakfast […]

Bible Raps joined Hakhel in the summer of 2018, and looks to fuse the two rarely overlapping worlds of Hip Hop and Torah. Here is how they do it… Rappers and Rabbis: An Unreasonable Obsession With The Word by Matt Bar I know there is some obvious concern to be raised when bringing hip hop into sophisticated adult Torah study. I mean, the one is lewd, misogynistic, full of killers and concubines and the other is hip hop. Ba-dum-bum-CHING! Over the past 18 months, Bible Raps has been facilitating retreats, podcasts, and curriculum that bring together a diverse group of rappers (street-wise lyricists who have honed their craft rap-battling on subway trains) and rabbis (book-wise teachers who have cut their teeth dueling it out in the Beit Midrash). Bible Raps has been serving as the anvil upon which these two word-loving communities let their lyrical hammers loose against the yellow-hot steel of Torah. And boy have the sparks been flying! Our podcasts and events are turning out razor-sharp-edged analysis amid steam-explosions of laughter. The hammer blows coming out of the Bible Raps Smithy have been hitting some powerfully deep frequencies. The rumblings are already being felt throughout the Jewish Adult Education […]

MoEd is… The place you should have been going after school when you were a kid. It just wasn’t around, so you couldn’t… A fun-loving kids’ community, where kids come to meet and play and talk – and learn (without realizing it)! A Hebrew-speaking Jewish afterschool, where every participant defines their space, their role, and what they want to learn. We do our best to give the kids a set of tools, a bag of skills… and a world of questions. They have to connect the dots, draw the lines, and come up with their very own definition and identity. We are a community of kids, backed by a community of families. We come together in the evening to make shakshuka from a recipe written in Hebrew, or watch The Band’s Visit and have a long discussion about the meaning of ‘center’ versus ‘periphery’ and everything in between. Members contribute their skills and knowledge to a growing, engaged community that learns about the Dead Sea Scrolls from a parent who is a professor, or about second-language acquisition from another parent who is a language specialist. MoEd is located in Chevy Chase, Maryland and serves the greater DC area. We have […]

by Mira Neshama Niculescu On Elul our anticipation grows, as we hear the shofar blow every morning in the synagogues, as we hurry to examine our deeds, as we call each other to say “I’m sorry”, and “I love you.” Then comes the two days where we celebrate the birthday of the world. As the month of Tishri triumphally starts, the doors of the sky open, we crown the source of life as king of the world, and we dip apples in honey, wishing each other a year of “goodness” and of “sweetness.” Just about ten days later, we all dress in white, rehearsing our death while calling for our rebirth, on the day of atonement, yom ha kippurim. When the night comes after that long journey throughout which we’re prayed to be inscribed in the book of life, we’re barely still drinking our warm tea after the fast, that it’s time to start planting the first pole of the booth we are getting ready to inhabit for seven days, resting under the palms through which we see the stars, feeling both our vulnerability and our gratitude towards the source of life whose natural bounty is everywhere around us. Sukkot, […]