The Lilith Blog

February 21, 2019 by Noa Kattler Kupetz

Baking Torah into the Challah

 As my mother drove a car full of kids to elementary school, I sat in the backseat, creating dough. The blue mixing bowl on my lap didn’t protect my clothes and the vehicle from a light layer of flour, and the practice was probably not the most sanitary, but the Friday was busy, and 7:30am was the only time for dough prep.

Challah, a staple of Shabbat, holiday tradition and Jewish cuisine, plays many roles: a rushed ritual in the back of a moving vehicle; the perfect bookends for a deli meat sandwich; a piece tossed across the family table; the loaf the dog can’t seem to get enough of. For Vanessa Harper, challah has become a space for shaping and sharing Torah.

The Lilith Blog

December 26, 2018 by Noa Kattler Kupetz

A Filmmaker Listens to Germans, Jews and Palestinians

Like many born into the generation following the Holocaust, Ofra Bloch has always been fascinated with, and affected by, generational trauma–on both sides. Bloch set out to make a documentary focusing on descendants of former oppressors, focusing on the effects of the Holocaust on non-Jewish Germans. But what she ended up creating extends far past that initial subject. Instead, “Afterward” weaves together three emotional narratives: Germans after the Holocaust, Palestinians after the “Nakba” (the “catastrophe,” known by Israelis as the 1948 War of Independence) and Bloch’s personal story of growing up in Israel squeezed between inescapable shadows of WWII on one hand, and silence regarding Palestinians on the other. 

As a child, Bloch dreamed of pursuing both psychology and filmmaking. Now, 30 years into her career as a psychoanalyst, “Afterward” is the meeting point of these dreams. “I have a lot of chutzpah, I take risks and I do things,” Bloch told Lilith. Throughout the six years it took to film and edit “Afterward,” Bloch continued to work full-time at her practice in New York. “I’m not a filmmaker, I’m a psychoanalyst, but I think both professions need the same skills,” she says. “You need to listen, which is like the camera looking at the subjects, and analyzing is like the editing process.”

The Lilith Blog

November 1, 2018 by Noa Kattler Kupetz

Jewish Women to Watch in Election 2018

With less than a week until Election Day, here’s an update on the Jewish female candidates profiled by Lilith in our Summer and Fall issues.

Alma Hernandez, Democrat • Candidate for Arizona’s 3rd District

There are two spots in the race, and Hernandez is polling in second behind Andres Cano (D). Though there is a Green Party candidate, no Republican candidate is running for the seats, virtually guaranteeing Hernandez’s win.

-If elected, Hernandez will become the youngest member of the Arizona state legislature, and first Mexican American Jewish woman in office.

The Lilith Blog

October 24, 2018 by Noa Kattler Kupetz

Why I Left My Sorority

Of all phases I went through in college, I speak the least of my time in a sorority. It wasn’t just any sorority, but the one that does that precarious arm pose, like a sun visor with your hand, but your hand is upside down and backwards and maybe on the verge of breaking. When I do talk about it, I’m guilty of one of the main critiques I level at sorority women: I judge. I give the finger to the classist, racist, sexist nature of Greek life, which, in retrospect, formed the most impactful phase of my college years. My short few months in a sorority taught me that I have the agency to choose my communities, and my values. 

But before coming to that realization and quickly leaving Greek life, I was a sorority girl. Like 85% of Supreme Court Justices that have served between 1910-2014, I was member of the exclusive system that is Greek life.