Love: Jewish Style!

Next month is Valentine’s Day, when, once again, you’ll be deluged with tips and suggestions for sharing love with others. (Make homemade valentines! Don high heels! Decorate cupcakes!) We decided to get a jump on the holiday by bringing love to your attention in January. But you don’t have to buy or make anything. Instead, sit back and enjoy our gift to you—an exploration of Jewish love in various forms, from the discovery of ancient Jewish love songs and prayers for finding a mate to the “Modern Love” column in the New York Times.

xoxo,
Michelle Cove, Editor, mcove@brandeis.edu

In This Issue

• Ancient Jewish Love Songs

  Our ancestors’ narrative songs, once considered insignificant love poems, can teach today’s Jewish women powerful lessons.

• The Girls’ Guide to Hot Rabbis and Tattooed Chefs

  What does the New York Times column, “Modern Love,” tell us about contemporary Judaism?

• Praying for a Spouse

  An Israeli professor makes it her mission to collect lost prayers written by and for women over the years. Here are three that she found on the eternal topic of seeking love.

• Untangling the Tassels

  Sometimes honoring a loved one comes in quiet moments, like sitting at temple working out the knots of your father’s talis.

• A Love Tale of Two Cities

  Living in two different countries gave this author a unique perspective on how to look at the intricate search for a significant other.

• Confessions to Anne Frank

  An Israeli teen writes of “the storms and the contradictions inside me too, and mainly the passionate longing for what doesn’t yet have a name.”