Kriyat Habonim Blog

Max with the fax Well...March 2020, probably the most significant and memorable of months for all of us. A lot happened in March: a virus has spread across the world effecting thousands, Harvey Weinstein finally saw justice and the Me Too movement had a big win and...

Purim is a confusing chag. Like many chaggim, it’s when we remember a story from our collective past, and like many other Jewish stories it includes a pretty substantial amount of suffering. But why on Purim, remembering a time when Haman literally wanted “to destroy,...

‘Tit-illation’; Double Standards and the Censorship of the Female Breast I’m sure we’re all familiar with the #FreeTheNipple movement - it’s slogan is often the butt of a joke or the half-baked battle cry of someone trying to mock modern Western feminism’s current...

Tu bishvat Tu B'Shevat is the Hebrew date specified as the new year for trees. Trees are vital. As the biggest plants on the planet, they give us oxygen, store carbon, stabilise the soil and give life to the world's wildlife, providing them with habitats and nutrients...

Disability vs Impairment Recently on my uni course we have been talking a lot about disability and impairment and how they have become social problems, rather than just things that people have in their lives.  One of the main discussions that is brought up is that of...

Shalom chaverim, In this blog entry, I’ll be delving into the issue of categorisation, and discussing this phenomenon’s lasting impacts on the societies in which we live today. To many of you, categorisation is likely not a topic that you will have considered with...

The story of Chanukah is a fairly simple one. A typical “they tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat!” Torah story. The most controversial part of it is in fact the spelling of the name of this chag (Chanukah, Hanukah, Chanukkah, Hanukka etc). However, I feel more...

Shalom Chaverim,   Today I’m writing about something that I’m sure you wouldn’t regularly contemplate on or discuss whether it is good or bad - NOSTALGIA.   Now you see, here is the dilemma. Some people will look at this word with a sense of happiness. They...

Today is Sigd, a significant religious holiday for Ethiopian Jews based upon the idea of repentance. To many Jews, Sigd is most comparable to Yom Kippur, due to it being a day of reflection, penitence and criticism. Despite these similarities, the major distinction...

Growing up I was always aware of a family story that sounded frankly bizarre: our ancestors, when fleeing Eastern Europe at the end of the 19thcentury, had supposedly got on a ship thinking it was headed for New York, but when the ship later docked in Dublin they...