Esther Graff-Radford is a Black woman and a Jew by choice whose soul found its way home down a long and winding path. She grew up in rural Louisiana and now lives in Atlanta with her husband, three children, and a wonderpack of chickens, dogs, guinea pigs, and honeybees. When she is not practicing law, she is studying Gemara, hunting wild mushrooms, and walking dogs at her local shelter.

It’s that the cookout and the Talmud share a deep mission. They are both containers for existential conversations my elders let me in on because I am theirs