Purim was never my holiday – til now * Putin zombified my Russian friends * Purim as a Jewish ‘Coming Out Day’ * The first bat mitzvah

[Times of Israel]( [The Blogs Weekly]( Thursday, March 17, 2022 From the blogs [Ukraine crisis sharpens Israel’s existential need for conversion reform]( By [Efraim Halevy]( [The state’s survival depends on solidifying its Jewish majority, and only the Knesset, not the Chief Rabbinate, has the authority to set conversion policy]( [Audrey Levitin]( [With its dress-up, drinking, and dark story, Purim was never my holiday. Until now]( [An unlikely hero takes a brave stand against tyranny and suddenly the holiday’s themes and message of heroism come alive for me]( [Sam Lehman-Wilzig]( [Legitimizing a Jewish travesty: Why Megillat Esther is in the Bible]( [The sages had specific reasons for wanting the Purim story in the canon, not the least of which was its emphasis on Esther’s cunning in saving the Jews]( [Much of the world is ambivalent about the Ukraine war. Rightly so.]( By [Radha Stirling]( [There is a distinct sentiment across Asia, Africa and the Arab world that Europe is throwing itself into a disaster and that the international order itself is crumbling]( [Susan Weiss]( [5 misconceptions about Jewish law’s chained women]( [To begin with, get-refusal is not just the fault of few bad men]( [Putin has zombified my kind, good friends back in Russia]( By [Vitaliy Katsenelson]( [This isn’t the first time Russia has trusted an evil, leader. With ironclad control of media, Putin wants Russians to forget their history so he can repeat it.]( [CRM]( [Steven Greenberg]( [Purim as a Jewish ’National Coming Out Day’]( [The Esther story celebrates the outing of nearly every one of its characters, assuring LGBTQ youth that the Jewish tradition recognizes their experience]( [Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll]( [The Ten Commandments of Get-Refusal]( [3 NGOs in 3 countries are standardizing communal practices around Jewish divorce to protect women and men from the halachic system’s failures]( [The first bat mitzvah: No thunder sounded. Or did it?]( By [Sharon Ann Musher]( [Consider the courage it took 100 years ago for Mordecai Kaplan’s daughter to leave the comfort of the women’s section and chant the Torah blessings]( Top Ops [Jonathan A. Greenblatt]( [We need a coalition of moral courage to oppose Iran’s fascism]( [The JCPOA is not enough to manage Tehran’s aggression – a Helsinki-style multi-lateral process is needed to stand against terror and for human rights]( [Haftam Yizhak-Heathwood]( [My heart breaks for Ukraine — and for Ethiopian Jews unable to get to Israel]( [White refugees are being welcomed in Israel while Black refugees are kept out. There’s a racial imbalance in our response – even in my response – to tragedies]( [Jonathan Muskat]( [Is Putin like Haman or Achashverosh?]( [Until recently, most saw the Russian as a powerful leader with whom one could negotiate in goodwill. Now, however, he will not be appeased]( [Helen Gottstein]( [Esther, power and voice]( [We admire the megillah’s heroine for her strategy, her community organizing, her bravery, her success with the king… but we should learn from her failure]( [Unsubscribe from this List]( Email not displaying correctly? [View in browser]( © 2022 The Times Of Israel, All Rights Reserved