The Past, Present, and Future of Queer Torah: Between Sunlight and Shade With Rabbi Avigayil Halpern

This class takes its name from the Rabbinic sage Rabbi Yochanan, who is often read as queer – his beauty is described as that of a silver goblet filled with pomegranate seeds and crowned with roses, set between sun and shade. It is in the beauty of that middle space that queer Torah emerges. In this series, we will examine texts and narratives from ancient to modern to ask: Is there such a thing as a canon of queer Torah? What qualifies Torah as “queer?” And what are the stakes of these questions for us as we approach an uncertain future?

Most Americans first encounter the words "Hebrew Israelite" through a street corner encounter, a news story, or a Southern Poverty Law Center label. Rabbi Walter Isaac, PhD, has spent two decades documenting an entirely different reality: a global, centuries-old tradition with roots in the Atlantic slave trade, ties to figures from throughout United States history, and a population the Manhattan Institute conservatively estimates at 22 million in the United States alone. In this conversation, Rabbi Isaac will walk us from the foundations of the tradition through its painful entanglement with the slave and sex trade, the wide variety of people who claim Hebrew Israelite identity today, and what an honest truth-and-reconciliation process between Hebrew Israelite and predominantly white rabbinic Jewish communities could actually look like.

A conversation with Rabbi Andy Kahn on what eight years in the work has taught her, and what she wants us to know now.

The Shabbat Haggadah: Tammuz 5786 is a guide for your Shabbat table during the month of Tammuz, a season of reflection on grief, when we find ourselves both seeking to process the hardships of the world, and standing up to make a world in which we have defeated the systems that create widespread grief.

Rather than a single Kiddush, this haggadah offers four cups, each paired with a text and reflection prompts drawing on poetry, Talmud, midrash, and Hasidic teaching. The cups move through four themes: poetry and song, action and doing, ethical responsibility, and spiritual practice. You can use all four in a single evening, or one cup per Shabbat throughout the month.

This haggadah was created by the American Council for Judaism in collaboration with Rabbis for Ceasefire, and includes contributions from three writers whose Jewish commitments span administration, rabbinics, and mystical art.

Whether you gather with a havurah, a family, a few friends around a table, or for personal reflection, this haggadah offers a structure for Shabbat that is rooted in tradition and oriented toward the world we are working to build.

On April 9, a group of Jewish writers published an open letter calling on the Jewish Book Council to stop centering Zionist and Israeli voices as the default of Jewish literature, and to make space for the wide range of Jewish writers working outside that framework. Four signatories join us to discuss how the letter came together, what they hope the JBC will do, and what it looks like to build new Jewish literary institutions while pushing existing ones to grow. We will explore anti-Zionist Jewish literary ancestors, how diasporic storytelling humanizes Palestinians and counters erasure, and the long history of Jewish dissent this moment belongs to.

What if the dominant progressive Jewish explanation for Zionist attachment, that our bodies carry the accumulated trauma of generations, is itself a kind of myth?

In his just-published essay for @jewishcurrents, "Does the Jewish Body Keep the Score?", writer Jon Danforth-Appell traces how the language of embodied, intergenerational trauma has come to saturate Jewish organizing spaces over the past decade. He argues that this framework treats Zionism, a political project, as a pathology, and in the process flattens a wildly diverse community into a single wounded body, relieving us of agency in the process.

Join Rabbi Andy Kahn in conversation with Jon on Tuesday, April 28 at 3:30 PM EST for a public education conversation exploring the history, theory, and politics of "Jewish trauma" as a concept. We'll talk about where these ideas come from, what they do inside our institutions, and what becomes possible when we accept agency as creators of Judaism.

What is a Jew? What is Judaism? And what does Jewish life look like when it's grounded in ethics, history, and practice rather than nationalism?
Whether you're Jewish, Jew-ish, exploring conversion, or simply curious, you're invited into this space.

Introduction to Judaism Beyond Nationalism is a 16-week survey course broken up into two modules, covering Jewish history, belief, practice, lifecycle, philosophy, and culture from the ancient world to the present.

We'll ask hard questions, sit with complexity, and learn together.

Hallel is among the oldest sequences in Jewish liturgical life, and at many seder tables it passes by quickly or gets skipped past entirely. This year we're offering something to slow it down.

Our free to download Hallel guide pairs each of the six psalms with a new translation, a contemporary poem, and a discussion question for your table. Audio recordings by Cantor Laura Stein accompany each psalm.

Join us on Thursday, March 19th at 6:00 PM Eastern for a wide-ranging conversation between two people who have devoted themselves to the American Council for Judaism, one who shaped its modern history, and one who is helping write its next chapter.

Join ACJ executive director Andy Kahn, Open Society fellow Dania Rajendra, and professor of multiethnic US literature at Indiana University, Benjamin Balthaser, for a timely conversation on Jewish radical history, anti-Zionism, and the roots of today’s Jewish uprising for Palestinian liberation.

The American Council for Judaism, Community Church of New York, Jewish Currents, Rabbis for Ceasefire and 15th Street Monthly Meeting (Quakers), invite you to an evening with author and human rights lawyer Sari Bashi, in conversation with Rabbi Andy Kahn, discussing her memoir Upside-Down Love.

Upside-Down Love tells the story of Sari and her partner Osama, a Palestinian professor originally from Gaza, and the life they have built together in the West Bank under the apartheid conditions of restricted movement, legal uncertainty, and enforced separation. The memoir speaks to the unique circumstances of this specific moment in history, while also illustrating a timeless truth: Love will triumph over bigotry and destruction.

Together, Sari Bashi and Rabbi Kahn will explore how personal story, law, and Jewish ethical frameworks can illuminate paths toward a more humane future.

Join Rabbi Andy Kahn and Rabbi Abby Chava Stein for a powerful conversation about the evolving edges of Jewish life today. Abby reflects on growing up in a Haredi community shaped by anti-Zionist teachings, how those ideas have shifted over time, and how her journey as a trans woman has helped her craft a Judaism rooted in truth, dignity, and expansive possibility.

Join Rabbi Andrue Kahn for a conversation with Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, acclaimed Jungian psychotherapist, teacher of Jewish renewal, and author of Wounds into Wisdom: Healing Intergenerational Jewish Trauma. Drawing on Jewish tradition, psychology, and case studies from across the globe, Rabbi Firestone offers seven principles for transforming inherited pain into resilience and moral clarity. Together, we'll explore how Jewish wisdom can guide us through grief, hope, and collective transformation in this season of reflection.

Join Rabbi Andy Kahn and Kohenet Shoshana Brown for a powerful conversation about how accusations of antisemitism are increasingly weaponized to silence dissent, divide communities, and align Jewish identity with far-right agendas. We'll explore how to dismantle antisemitism through liberatory, non-punitive practices grounded in restorative justice, solidarity, and collective healing.

Rabbi Andy Kahn will be joined by Ben Lorber and Shane Burley to discuss their recent book, Safety Through Solidarity. The discussion will highlight approaches of shared responsibility across difference in the fight for justice and safety for all people as as the most effective form of combatting antisemitism.