by Shekhiynah Larks | Nov 6, 2019 | Holidays, Identity
This week the Ethiopian Jewish community will begin its celebration of Sigd, an ancient holiday which is formally observed 50 days after Yom Kippur. Since 2008, Sigd has been recognized in Israel as a national holiday. Ethiopian Israelis today use the holiday to...
by Shekhiynah Larks | Oct 30, 2019 | Identity
Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks. These were the “Black people you should know,” and often the only ones covered in my classrooms every school year. Black history—if it was taught—was sometimes reserved for February. Black history was made to feel...
by Shekhiynah Larks | Oct 24, 2019 | Identity
Growing up in Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay area, I always felt as if I were different than everyone else. My mother is Armenian and Russian-Jewish and was born in New York, and my father is Mexican and moved to California at the age of fifteen. The majority...
by Shekhiynah Larks | Oct 10, 2019 | Holidays, Identity
During Sukkot we open our temporary homes symbolically and recall our ancestors: Abraham, who left his home for the land God promised to show him; Isaac, who struggled to find his own way; Jacob, who fled from his brother; Joseph, who was enslaved and taken to Egypt...
by Shekhiynah Larks | Oct 7, 2019 | Holidays, Identity
Sukkot is a holiday of joy and welcome. The custom of inviting spiritual ushpizin, which means “guests” in Aramaic, into the sukkah is a way of extending that welcome and joy to those who cannot physically be with us but whose spirit and values represent that which we...
