The media reacts with increased coverage on people who identify as intersexual or queer. For those who are queer, it’s difficult to find a place in a heteronormative world that only knows female or male, but nothing in between.
Tom Chai Sosnik’s story shows how queer people can find their place in society, and how not only they but everyone can benefit from it. Tom celebrated his coming out as transgender in spring 2015 with remarkable aplomb – in a ceremony performed by Rabbi Tsipi Gabai at a Jewish school in California, supported by his family.
The Jewish year 5778 begins today—and with it a very special time for the Jewish community worldwide. Rosh ha-Shanah is the beginning of the High Holy Days, the Yamim Noraim (literally “Days of Awe”) as they’re known in Hebrew.
I asked around my friend group a bit to find out what Rosh ha-Shanah means to them personally: → continue reading
Three Question for Anthropologists Dr. Dani Kranz and Katja Harbi
Photo: Katja Harbi
Our Academy programs regularly introduce new scholarship examining contemporary issues of migration and diversity. On May 4, University of Wuppertal anthropologists Dr. Dani Kranz and Katja Harbi will be presenting the results of the study they conducted, entitled Israeli Migration to Germany since 1990, with a lecture and show of photographs at the Jewish Museum Berlin. The research was largely about these immigrants’ identities and the significance of the Shoah for their lives in Germany, as well as the political and ideological debates occurring around them in Israel and Germany. We put three questions to the two anthropologists in advance of their presentation: → continue reading