Elana SztokmanNov 17, 20211 min readWhen the feminist "ally" is also a sexual predatorRabbi Sally Priesand, the first American woman to become a rabbi, wrote in today's Forward that she is "heartbroken" to discover that the...
Elana SztokmanNov 13, 20212 min readThe sting of, "Well, what are you DOING now?""Well what are you doing NOW?" Last week I shared publicly for the first time that I'm not in rabbinical school anymore. I actually left...
Elana SztokmanNov 8, 20215 min read"Is it abuse or is the guy just an a**hole?"This text is the introduction I wrote to a chapter about Gender Abuse in my upcoming book on sexual abuse in the Jewish community. I...
Elana SztokmanNov 1, 20212 min readExcuse me while I have a post-traumatic-stress event about mikvehTW: I will be offending practicing orthodox Jews. If this is you, maybe don't read this. ****** ****** ****** I just saw a flier for an...
Elana SztokmanOct 27, 20212 min readWomen's voices are needed more urgently than everIt felt like forever when I was standing at the crosswalk near my home waiting for the light to turn red. I pressed the button. I watched...
Elana SztokmanOct 18, 20214 min readFarewell, Mr. Gnatt. Thank you for the music.Mr. Moshe Gnatt, my childhood music teacher, died yesterday. He was the music teacher at the Yeshiva of Flatbush, both in elementary and...
Elana SztokmanOct 12, 20214 min readWatching the sunset, thinking about my friend Chaya, and doing nothingAs I took a walk to see the sunset over the Mediterranean Sea in Yaffo tonight, I was thinking about my friend Chaya who died last week....
Elana SztokmanOct 11, 20213 min readShimon Peres, Eliezer Stern, and other tales of sexual assault in Israeli corridors of powerThis has been a week of revelations about sexual harassment in high-powered Israeli culture. First up: Colette Avital, who has often been...
Elana SztokmanOct 5, 20218 min readFatal FAIL: The police saw Gabby Petito as a “mental health” problem instead of a victim of violenceNow that the FBI has finally issued an arrest warrant for Brian Laundrie following the murder of his fiancé Gabby Petito, we can say one...
Elana SztokmanAug 15, 20215 min readReflections on the women of AfghanistanI would like to talk about what's going in Afghanistan. Because, even though we have more 'local' stories to worry about, like covid and...
Elana SztokmanJul 18, 20213 min readAbout that Unorthodox Netflix series everyone is talking aboutI didn't watch the Netflix show itself, just the dozens of angry FB posts appearing on my feed this morning, almost exclusively from...
Elana SztokmanJun 29, 20216 min readReconsidering Britney SpearsI’ve thought a lot about Britney Spears over the years. Her name even appears in the title of the first essay in my book, Conversations...
Elana SztokmanJun 21, 202113 min readThat time a doctor sat on a pregnant woman and then she died[Trigger warning: Violence against women] Karin Lalush (in the photo to the right), a 31-year-old pregnant woman, died last week during...
Elana SztokmanJun 19, 202110 min readOn bodies, Beyoncé, and being from Brooklyn: A Jewish girl faces her racist past I wrote this essay in May 2020 in the middle of corona lockdown, when I was watching a lot of Netflix and doing a lot of reflecting about...
Elana SztokmanJun 8, 202115 min readI tried to stop focusing on my weight. It didn’t go well.[I wrote this post in April 2021] When I decided to go on a three-week health retreat to a place called “House of Healing” up in Israel’s...
Elana SztokmanJun 8, 202112 min readWhat happened when my daughter told me she's pregnant[I wrote this essay in December 2020 but was very hesitant about publishing.... My daughter has since given birth thank God to amazing...
Elana SztokmanApr 4, 202112 min readI'm off to a health retreat by myself. Indulgence? No, urgent self-careThe ride up to the northern Galilee offered my eyes a generous quench of color. Lush green mountains carpeted with purple sage, yellow...
Elana SztokmanMar 23, 20216 min readI'm taking singing lessons. This is what I discovered about my voice, Judaism, and women's lives. This past year, I decided to start taking singing lessons. It is something I have wanted to do since I was a kid. That and take drum...
Elana SztokmanMar 20, 20215 min readI used to crochet yarmulkas for boys. Now I'm crocheting stuff for myself. Here's what I've learned.I started to crochet again. It’s different this time around, since I stopped 15 or 20 years ago. Back then, I was pretty much crocheting...
Elana SztokmanMar 11, 20214 min readWhen buying a gift for a man is a study in masculinityThis week was my husband’s birthday, so I decided to buy him a gift. In pre-Corona days, I hated shopping, but after a year of hunkering...
