A PUBLICATION OF THE CANADIAN JEWISH NEWS / SUMMER 2026 | 5786 ַקיִץ
“Funny, you don’t look Jewish...” How other people see us —or don’t— shapes how we see ourselves
PHOTO ESSAY A JEW IN BERLIN BY AUTHOR NAME HOW JEWISH IS SETH ROGAN BY AUTHOR NAME
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Contents SUMMER 2026 Feature 5786 ַקִיץ
26
“Funny, you don’t look Jewish...” Jews and non-Jews alike can make assumptions about Jewish identity based on physical appearance. The resulting interactions are sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes funny, and sometimes deeply isolating. by GLYNIS RATCLIFFE
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Contents SUMMER 2026 | 5786 ַַקקִִייץ
Letter from the Editor ........... 8
IN THE BEGINNING
pg 41
13 The Kibbitz: Adam Mintz
A rabbi discusses the changing dynamics of conversion after the pandemic and October 7. by AVI FINEGOLD 18 On One Foot: Cremation Is it wrong for a Jew to be cremated? by AVI FINEGOLD 41 Eating Our Feelings: Elana Sckolnick’s MishMash Eggs by COREY MINTZ CULTURE KLATSCH 44 Bookish: Nebbishette — A Lost Sensibility Self-deprecating straight women were once a fixture of Jewish and mainstream culture. by PHOEBE MALTZ BOVY 50 Jewdar Forthcoming books, films, and other new releases of note.
A FAMILY TRADITION WITH ROOTS THAT GO BACK THREE GENERATIONS: MISHMASH EGGS.
56 Comic An evening with Rose Lipszyc. by MIRIAM LIBICKI
ON THE COVER: The photographer and writer who created this issue’s photo essay sat with about a dozen subjects to ex- plore the complicated intersection of identity and appearance.
CLARIFICATION: Our essay on Judy Blume (Spring 2026) described the recent biography of her as “autho- rized.” While Blume did participate robustly in the biography as it was being researched and gave the author multiple interviews, as was revealed more recently in The New York Times , Blume’s involvement waned over the course of the writing and she decided not to join in events promoting the book after publication. We have also clarified that the private correspon- dence the author consulted, apart from his own with his subjects, was in publicly accessible archives.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY SHLOMI AMIGA
4 SUMMER 2026
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Contributors
SCRIBE QUARTERLY is a magazine about Jewish life, culture, and ideas—a reader’s guide to the contemporary Jewish world.
SHLOMI AMIGA has worked with leading brands, agencies and publications including The Globe and Mail and Toronto Life. He is known for taking a thoughtful, partnership-driven ADAM LERNER is a New York–based photographer. Known for his sophisticated visual approach and collaborative spirit, he has built a reputation as a trusted partner to industry-leading agencies and editorial teams. approach to visual work.
EDITOR IN CHIEF Hamutal Dotan
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SHLOMI AMIGA COVER AND COVER STORY P. 26
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ADAM LERNER THE KIBBITZ, P.13
GLYNIS RATCLIFFE is an opera singer turned journalist and editor with bylines
in The Globe and Mail , Chatelaine ,
The Walrus , and The Washington Post. She is currently working on a documentary about her grand- father’s escape from Nazi Germany.
GLYNIS RATCLIFFE COVER STORY, P.26
PRINTED IN WINNIPEG BY THE PROLIFIC GROUP.
8 SUMMER 2026
Letter from the Editor
The Power of Expectations
M
prise, sometimes suspicion, some- times curiosity. It’s said by non-Jews who believe they know what a Jew is supposed to look like — and by Jews themselves, echoing internal- ized ideas shaped by history, fami- ly, media, and inherited biases.” His portraits and the accompanying essay, by writer Glynis Ratcliffe, serve as a kaleidoscopic exploration of these encounters, from the painful to the comedic. But, as stories elsewhere in this issue reveal, there are also other ways Jewish identity gets coded — whether through religious practice, cultural shorthand, or institutional imprimatur — and ways that those codes are being challenged and revised. Whether it’s an Orthodox rabbi bypassing organizational norms for conversion (meet him in the Q&A), the growing number of Jews opting for cremation (the theo- logical implications of which are examined in On One Foot), or stereotypical depictions of Jewish men and women in pop culture (discussed in Bookish), received expectations are not a reliable guide. Perhaps they never were. HAMUTAL DOTAN EDITOR IN CHIEF SCRIBE QUARTERLY
AGAZINES are inherently col- laborative: you cannot make one on your own, and even if you could,
who would want to? The joy and satisfaction in creating them is in the conversations you have as you bat ideas around with writers, work with an artist to land on different ways to illustrate a particularly tricky essay, go back and forth with other One consequence of this: some- times, without any one person real- izing or intending it, themes in your collective work emerge organically. We did not originally imagine this issue as having a specific focus, but soon enough, it became clear that most of the stories in it were, in their own ways, responding to the same questions: What conventionally received ideas do we have about being Jewish? What — and who — do those received ideas leave out? The photo essay that anchors the issue, almost a year in the making, began with an email from photog- rapher Shlomi Amiga about an idea that he had been mulling for a long editors about how to frame a contentious issue as fairly and accurately as possible. time, one inspired by a seeming- ly simple comment: You don’t look Jewish. “It’s a phrase that lingers,” he wrote, “sometimes offered with sur-
5786 ַקִיץ 9
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The Kibbitz Rabbi Adam Mintz on the changing dynamics of conversion after the pandemic and October 7. by AVI FINEGOLD The Kibbitz
“YOU CAN’T CONVERT EVERYBODY WHO ASKS. IF YOU CONVERT EVERYBODY, YOU HAVE NO STANDARDS, AND THAT’S SOMETHING I GRAPPLE WITH.”
5786 ַקִיץ 13
PHOTOGRAPH BY ADAM LERNER
The Kibbitz
Why do you think conversion rates have been increasing? Post-October 7th, there were many people who felt this was their oppor- tunity to identify with Israel, to iden- tify with Judaism. For example, Israelis who come to America often want to set aside their Israeli identity. They meet a non-Jewish American and aren’t particularly interested in whether she converts or not. But after October 7th, all of a sudden, it became important to them to be identified as Jews. I have a number of those couples where one spouse converted and now they’re raising Jewish families, some- times even back in Israel. Pre-COVID, everybody had their rabbi, and if your rabbi didn’t want to do a conversion, you didn’t have many options: Orthodox rabbis are generally reticent to get involved in conversions. But, during COVID, rabbi shopping became more com- mon. People weren’t going to shul What are some of those barriers for Orthodox rabbis? What caused you to make conversions a big focus? You could say the barrier is the tra- dition of pushing the convert away. [Editor’s note: Traditionally, rabbis would reject would-be converts three times, as a way of ensuring that only those who are truly serious about the process undertake it.] But I don’t think that’s the real reason. I think it’s fear. Status is a big deal, and to sud- denly declare someone Jewish was, I think, very frightening for a lot of rab- bis. It was much easier to kick it up- stairs—to send it to the RCA [The Rabbinical Council of America, one of the main governing bodies for Ortho- dox rabbis. In 2008, it launched the A DAM MINTZ is the founder anymore; they didn’t have their rabbi. They could look around. And, sudden- ly, people were finding rabbis outside their own community who were will- ing to do conversions. of Project Ruth, a program that helps people convert to Juda- ism. An Orthodox pulpit rabbi and academic, Mintz leads The Shtiebel, a community and congregation in Manhattan. “Over the past seven or eight years,” he says, “the number of conversions has grown, and then post-COVID and post– October 7th it has really exploded.” Mintz has also written extensively about eruvim , the series of boundary markers that communities erect and maintain to define the borders of carrying on Shabbat, as well as two volumes of the Ortho- dox Forum, a series created to discuss major issues in the Orthodox Jewish community. We spoke about the shifting landscape of conversion within the Jewish community.
Geirus Protocols and Standards pro- gram to centralize Orthodox conver- sions in North America.] The problem is that at some point you’re going to have someone in your shul whom you care about who needs to convert. And all of a sudden kicking it to the RCA won’t be good enough, because them taking two or three years with no call- backs is going to be a real problem when they’re members of your con- gregation. I’ve had many rabbis call me in exactly those situations. I have noticed anecdotally that when someone Haredi has a child marry- ing someone who isn’t Jewish, the process for conversion seems to get expedited. That’s the Ivanka [Trump] case — that’s certainly true. You bring up an inter- esting point about who and when and what gets expedited. There’s a big fear in the Haredi com- munity of false negatives—of con- verting someone who isn’t sincere, who might have issues with their conversion later. What’s the cost of that model? You can’t convert everybody who asks. If you convert everybody, you have no standards, and that’s something I grapple with. In the non-Orthodox world, there’s an opinion that basical- ly we should just have an open mikveh day, line everyone up, and make a lot more Jews. I understand that theory: we want more Jews. But you still have to have a process. What I’ve tried to do with Project Ruth is really tighten that process. What happens is: someone calls me and, if you’re interested in joining Project Ruth, you go to the website, click apply, and it automatically sets up a 15-minute interview with me. I know within the first 30 seconds whether this is going to be right or
14 SUMMER 2026
The Kibbitz
This raises an interesting question: to what extent do we conflate con- formity with conviction? On the Haredi side, the argument is that the only thing we have to go on is conformity, and if someone main- tains that conformity for two years they must be sincere, because no- body would pick this otherwise. On the other hand, there’s sometimes a reluctance to ask really hard ques- tions about what people actually be- lieve. How do we balance? It’s very hard to judge sincerity. The only thing we can judge is commit- ment. If someone goes to shul, they are committed. I don’t know what they’re thinking when they say Sh’ma Yisrael, but they’re going to shul on Shabbos, going to Friday-night dinners, participating. If their house is kosher, that’s a certain type of commitment. I had a similar situation. Someone at a shul I was working at wanted his wife to convert, and he was born Jewish. He complained: “All these things you’re asking of me, none of my friends do—and they were born Jewish. Their kids can have bar mitzvahs, and you’re asking us to come to shul every Shabbos for a year without missing anything.” My only response was that, once you’re in, you get more leeway. But in order to get in you have to show your commitment. He said it wasn’t fair, and I somewhat agree with him. That’s a very serious point. It is true that I want converts to come to shul more regularly. If my congregants skip a couple of weeks, they skip a couple of weeks. If a convert skips two weeks, I want to know what’s up. Conversion doesn’t just have reli- gious barriers; Jewish society is in- sular. Do we have a responsibility to
there’s homework after every class. Everybody gets a scorecard which they can access. We want them all to get 100%, but they have to earn it. If they do the homework, we’ll help them get the right answers. But, if we see that, out of 25 classes they were absent for 10, and out of the 15 they attended they only did the homework for three — then they’re not ready for conversion. The good thing about Google Classroom and CRMs [user platforms] and the internet is they don’t lie. If they were in the class, we know they were in the class. In addition to that, we want each conversion candidate to be part of a shul. That’s not always simple: they don’t always live walking distance to a shul or in a community with an Ortho- dox shul, so we help them find one. At the end, we ask for a letter from their rabbi confirming they attended shul for at least three months.
wrong. Nobody’s rejected, but I can tell whether this is going to be a good fit, whether this person is right for an Orthodox conversion, or wheth- er they’re searching but don’t quite know what they want. Sometimes I can direct them elsewhere. Some- times the whole thing might not be right for them. Can you tell me about Project Ruth? What made me start it was that so many people wanted to convert that I felt I needed a system. What we do in Project Ruth is offer a series of online classes. We require every con- version candidate to take five five- part mini-series over a period of six to twelve months. Topics include Shabbos, kashrut , Pesach, t’filah , the laws of taharat hamishpacha for women—the basics of Jewish life. We try to make it very serious; at- tendance is taken at every class, and
5786 ַקִיץ 15
PHOTOGRAPH BY ADAM LERNER
The Kibbitz
We’re much better than we were 30 years ago, and obviously much bet- ter than we were 75 years ago. That’s just a question of time. That’s being replaced by the fact that people are converting and Jewish families are being created that look different from the Ashkenazi norm. The more that happens, the better off we’ll be. Those converts who look different know which shuls are welcoming and which aren’t. But you and I know that’s true for us too—if we don’t wear a black hat, not every shul is right for us. So we make a big deal about it with con- verts, but the truth is it affects even us Ashkenazi Jews. Do you think the non-Orthodox world has its own blind spots by hav- ing an open-door policy on conver- sions? I mean, for them it largely makes sense — they want more Jews, they It’s very hard to judge sincerity. The only thing we can judge is commitment. I don’t know what someone’s thinking when they say Sh’ma Yisrael, but if they’re going to shul, that’s a certain type of committment.
potential converts in that area? Or is the rabbi’s job just to handle the reli- gious components? The social piece is very important. There are rabbis who won’t officiate at the weddings of converts, making things very difficult. My conversions will never have the same standing as RCA conversions. They have created a monopoly where they’ve gotten the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to accept their conversions and not mine. I’m blocked out through the front door. As the old saying goes: if you can’t get in through the front door, go through the window. But it’s always easier through the front door. Even converts who come in the front door have trouble socially integrating. Con- verts who come in through the win- dow, that’s all the more complicated. To add to that: when something does go wrong, when a convert isn’t ac- cepted by the community, we tend to say the person didn’t try hard enough. The community is generally seen as blameless, without asking whether we had the right structures in place to truly welcome that person. Obviously, that’s right. A communi- ty that truly works with people on the margins is the exception. Converts are among those people on the mar- gins where we’re not doing a good enough job. I want to look at the demograph- ics of people being converted, be- cause it’s an area people don’t quite have language for. There’s this no- tion of “not looking Jewish,” which we know really means “not look- ing Ashkenazi.” Historically, look- ing Jewish meant someone felt safe, they were part of the group. How do we hold that reality while acknowl- edging that “you don’t look Jewish” is problematic and racialized?
want more in-marriage. The problem is: are they really Jewish? You can have a more lenient policy about what’s required for conversion, but if you have no policy at all, it’s hard to say they’re Jewish. The downside is they’re creating Jewish families that aren’t really Jewish families. That’s a serious issue. Sometimes it’s fan- tastic, but sometimes they’re creating Jewish families that aren’t really prac- ticing or acting as Jews. We have to talk about what it means to live a real Jewish life, to be converted to a real Jewish life. There doesn’t seem to be much data about conversion and long-term re- tention, though anecdotally, it can be spotty. Wouldn’t the conversion process be so much better if we had the right follow-up tools and data? For sure. We’ve now introduced a post-conversion class and have seven people in it. It’s very hard — we converted 191 people and I have seven in the class, because I don’t hold anything over them. It’s only people who want to learn. That doesn’t mean only seven are actually living Jewishly. But it’s very, very hard to get people to commit post-conversion. What’s one thing you’d suggest to other conversion programs, Ortho- dox or not? You’ve got to give people a finish line, and you have to honour that finish line. You can make it hard. You can re- quire a lot. You can say it takes three years, and you have to know Modeh Ani. That’s all fine. But, when they get to the goal line, you have to allow them to score a touchdown. Part of the problem with some of these pro- grams is [would-be converts] get to the one-yard line, and [the communi- ty] builds a wall at the one-yard line. That’s not acceptable.
16 SUMMER 2026
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On One Foot
IS IT WRONG FOR A JEW TO BE CREMATED?
Just like Hillel’s student, we all have complex questions that we want answered as simply as possible. Here, we consider a question of contemporary relevance and explore how sources both classical and modern address it. by AVI FINEGOLD
ACROSS NORTH AMERICA, cremation has become by far the most popular option for caring for the dead. In Canada, the rate is now over 75%. Rates within the Jewish community are significantly lower — about 5% to 10%, according to the funeral directors in Canada I spoke to. But numbers are ris- ing, especially in the US, where funeral directors estimate somewhere between 40 and 80% of Jewish funerals involve cremation. The historical Jewish aversion to cremation is on
the wane. People who opt for cremation cite environmen- tal concerns, the skyrocketing cost of traditional burial, or the simplicity of the cremation process. At the same time, many Jews are either unaware of or unmoved by the value of traditional burial. Is cremation completely forbidden by all branches of Judaism? Are rabbis prohibited from officiat- ing at these funerals? How do we honour the wishes of those who left instructions for cremation in their wills?
GENESIS 3:19 By the sweat of your brow shall you get bread to eat, until you return to the ground — for from it you were taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return. DEUTERONOMY 21:23 You must not let the corpse remain on the stake overnight, but must bury it the same day. For an impaled body is an af- front to God: you shall not defile the land that your God is giving you to possess. 1 THESE TWO VERSES ARE OFTEN cited as the legal and phil- osophical basis for requiring burial in Judaism. The verse in Genesis is from God’s punishment to Cain for murdering his broth- er. The verse in Deuteronomy is the instruction to bury the body of one who was guilty of a capital offence and was subsequently executed by the court. Even though the body is to remain in pub- lic as a warning to others, the dignity accorded to the body dic- tates that it be buried by the end of the day. If someone guilty of such serious sins gets a swift and proper burial, how much more so should anyone else within the community? Notable as well are the many instances of burial that are part of Biblical narrative: Abraham burying Sarah, Jacob requesting that his children carry his bones out of Egypt to be buried in the family plot, and Moses being buried by God in a secret location.
2 TACITUS, one of the great Ro- man historians, gives his im- pression of Jewish practice at the time of writing in the first century CE. Burial, among other practices listed here, is seen as emblematic of Jewish identity. This must make the practice old enough to have been firmly entrenched by this point. In fact, it seems to have survived de- spite the rabbinic injunction against adopting Egyptian customs. The Jews … bury the body rath- er than burn it, thus following the Egyptians’ custom; they like- wise bestow the same care on the dead, and hold the same be- lief about the world below; but their ideas of heavenly things are quite the opposite. TACITUS: HISTORIES 5:5 (C. 100-110)
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On One Foot
DAVID ZVI HOFFMAN, MELAMED LEHO’IL II:114 (1927)
4 THIS IS A NOTE appended in 1980 to the end of the original responsum on cremation from 1891. The original author, Solomon Freehof, exhaustively examined all the tradi- tional sources regarding burial and concluded that, for Reform Jews, the practice of cremation was permitted. And yet, the Reform movement, ever true to their ethos of reexamining tra- dition, allowed that there are many who are deeply disturbed by crema- tion since the Shoah. This deep emo- tional distress is not enough to reverse the movement’s position, but this note gives voice to decades of trauma and reflects the attitudes of many Jews over the past decades. The practice remains permis- sible, however, for our families. Ashes of a cremation should be treated with respect as human re- mains. They may be interred in our cemeteries, subject to the rules of the cemetery. The ancient Jewish preference for burial within a per- son’s personal property may be hon- ored more easily in the case of ashes than in the case of a body, according to some State laws, but we still favor use of a Jewish communal cemetery or mausoleum. Because a building in which the ashes of a Jew are perma- nently entombed might well seem to a Cohen to be like a cemetery which he would hesitate to enter, we oppose keeping ashes in a home. “CREMATION FROM THE JEWISH STANDPOINT,” AMERICAN REFORM RESPONSA 100 (1980) In this generation of the Holocaust we are sensitive to terrible images as- sociated with the burning of a body. Rabbis may, therefore, choose to dis- courage the option of cremation.
3 CREMATION BECAME THE VOGUE in the late 19th century with the invention of more modern methodologies. This spurred a great deal of writing about the topic. The vast majority of Orthodox authori- ties were against it, yet there remained an open question as to what to do with cremated ashes. The author of this responsa, David Zvi Hoff- man, headed a yeshivah in Berlin and was a leading halakhic authority. He was among the first of the proto-Modern Orthodox rabbis: deep- ly committed to a halakhic life, but willing to accept that the world was changing and turning one’s back on it was not an option. Here, he carefully threads the needle of opposing cremation, while allowing for a more dignified approach to remains and for living family mem- bers to mourn appropriately where cremation was done nonetheless. In contemporary orthodoxy, many authorities still forbid any involve- ment in a funeral that has a cremation. Some go so far as to say that Kaddish should not be said, and shivah should not be observed. Oth- ers, following in Hoffman’s footsteps, take a more moderate approach. And if the ashes are taken to the cemetery to a special place for him, the rabbi shall not eulogize the deceased, and they shall place him in a coffin like other dead people and bury him in a coffin, and the cantor shall say the appropriate prayers with the mourners and the mourners shall say the Kaddish. The hevra kadisha shall not be involved in the funeral. Only the hired grave- diggers who work for a wage shall supervise this burial. Regard- ing mourning, if the relatives ask, it is permissible after the burial. It is clear that it is forbidden to cremate a Jewish corpse, for two reasons. It nullifies the positive commandment of burial. It does not matter if the ashes are buried, or if one fulfills all the mitzvahs of burial after cremation. Even if you claim that the ashes would require burial, the commandment is to bury the entire body and the ashes are not the entire body. Furthermore, it is forbidden to burn any human corpse, because this is considered to be a great desecration of the dead, both according to the Bible and accord- ing to the Talmud. … In an observant community with its own cemetery, one is obliged to ensure that those who are cremated will not be buried there. If it ever happens that an observant in- dividual dies and his heirs demand that his body, which they cre- mated, be given to the cemetery, they should give him a place at the edge of the cemetery. In mixed communities, a separate sec- tion should be designated for cremated remains. No one from the community should be employed by a crematorium, so that no one will assist in committing a transgression, the heirs shall do everything according to their wishes, and the community shall have no part in that act.
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On One Foot
RABBI MORRIS M. SHAPIRO, “CREMATION IN THE JEWISH TRADITION” (1986)
5 THIS EULOGY WAS DELIVERED at a burial of the ashes of six Holocaust vic- tims whose remains were in the possession of the Imperial War Museum. These remains were transferred to the Jewish community of England for an appropriate burial, the first for Holocaust victims in the UK. This case is similar to one in the 1950s, in which ashes of Holocaust victims were brought to Israel to be buried. The ruling of the chief rabbinate at the time was that not only was this burial permitted — at the time, cremation was not allowed in Israel — but it was a noble and holy act. Mirvis echoes this sentiment here and, in doing that, underscores the fact that cremation itself is not the essence of the prohibition; rather, what is problematic is the deliberate act of cremation as willfully going against tradition. EPHRAIM MIRVIS, CHIEF RABBI OF THE UNITED HEBREW CONGREGATIONS OF THE COMMONWEALTH, FROM A DELIVERED EULOGY (2019) We don’t know who you are. We don’t know your names. We don’t know if you are male or female. We don’t know which coun- tries you came from. We don’t know what you did for a living. We don’t have details of your families. But there is one thing that we do know — you were Jewish. And it was for that single reason that you were brutally murdered. … Six million of our people were so cruelly murdered and the vast majori- ty of the members of their families did not have the opportunity to bring them to their eternal rest.
In the final analysis, there is no convincing rea- son why we should deviate from such a sacred established tradition. Nowhere in the Talmud is there any doubt vis-a-vis the established meth- od of burial: the question merely centers around whether we should listen to a person who says “I don’t want to be buried.”… We may safely conclude, then, even though we have reached the conclusion that cremation is against the Jewish tradition, nevertheless if the body has been cremated, there is still a positive mitzvah to bury the ashes. The contention that those who wish to be cremated are apostates or sinners and, therefore, one may not attend to them is not valid in light of our modern experiences. The religious views of those who wish to be cremated are no different from other non-observant Jews. The wish to be cremated, in our days, is rather psychological, not religious.
6 IN THIS RESPONSUM, adopted by the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Laws and Standards, the author upholds the traditional prohibition against cremation but outlines a different policy than the Orthodox approach, holding that the burial of cremains is still a mitzvah. This has become the approach of many rabbis: they will not officiate a service prior to the cremation (which might be abetting an act they do not condone), but they will officiate at a subsequent burial.
20 SUMMER 2026
On One Foot
Rabbi Boris Dolin CONGREGATION DORSHEI EMET, MONTREAL
decision has always been made be- fore they come to me. So I just support it from the beginning as long as they can tell me why they’ve made that decision. The service itself is still fairly Jewish. I still do the traditional prayers. We do every- thing that would go along with the traditional funeral service. There is definitely a wide variety of opinions within liberal Judaism. But I think the whole idea of being Reconstructionists is that, while we honour the tradition first, we also have to honour the reality of how
I WOULD NEVER SAY that I recom- mend cremation. As a Reconstruc- tionist rabbi, I honour the tradition first, but I also honour the families and the choices of the person who died. I honour what the tradition says about Kavod Ha’met , honouring the physical body, and having a place for families to go to a gravesite. On the other hand, as a liberal rabbi, I think what matters even more in some cases is someone’s wishes. So if a family wants cremation, I’m not willing to just have an intellec- tual conversation about it. That YOU DON’T SEE in the Torah a direct commandment to bury, or a prohibition against cremation or non- burial. Practically, I don’t think it makes a difference because, by the time you get to Maimonides and the other medieval rabbis, it is clearly codified as a law. Therefore, those who are committed to following halakha are going to take that seri- ously and make sure to bury and not cremate. A lot of halakhot that we accept as given don’t have an actual “Thou shalt … ” or “Thou shalt not … ” in the Torah itself. These are often- times halakhot that evolve as a result of minhag over a long period of time, which eventually gets codified. … Rabbi David Begoun L’CHAIM CENTER, ISRAEL
people live their lives … and the values of the people who are dealing with this situation. I’ve also dealt with families who just don’t have the money to plan a burial service. The end result of this approach is often [that the families] stay con- nected with the Jewish communi- ty. I’ve seen it with cremation, I’ve seen it with weddings, with so many other things. If I can welcome them, and tell them there’s a place for the choice they’ve made, they appreci- ate that there is a place for them in the community. That’s positive.
existence of an afterlife may have that afterlife potentially withheld from them. Centuries ago, if a Jew decided to take the unheard-of measure of having a cremation, it was usually a way to specifically broadcast to the world that they did not believe in the afterlife. But, today, a typical Jew who has a parent or somebody who is cremated is not at all making any kind of theological statement. They’re doing it either out of convenience or affordability, or because they believe it is more environmentally sound or they don’t want to burden family members to have to come visit them. It’s not because they are making a strong theological statement.
I think that cremation presents a huge challenge to congregational rab- bis in our day and age. If I felt there was an opportunity to have a discus- sion with the family members that were in charge and to try to share with them the importance of burial, I would try to have that conversation — but only if I thought there was a possi- bility that it could actually be effective. Theologically, this is how I under- stand the aversion to have anything to do with cremation. We have sources that say that somebody who is cremated will not be resurrected when the Messiah comes. But that’s not really true. What that really means is that somebody who denies the
THERE IS overwhelming evidence for burial as the traditional practice in Judaism. Even those who allow for cremation do not see it as ideal and recognize that, in the wake of the Holocaust, it can be particularly problematic. The main work in the modern era has been to understand what is best to do in a situation where a cremation will happen or has already happened. And yet psychol- ogy, history, and considerations of finance or preference compli- cate that tradition. As I was researching this piece, a colleague of
mine — a rabbi at an egalitarian Conservative congregation — told me about a congregant of his he once assisted in getting his affairs in order, and who insisted on cremation. After the usual pro- testations, the congregant responded: I lost my entire family in the Shoah, and they were burned to ash. Who are you to tell me that when I die, my body can’t be treated as their bodies were? He of- ficiated at the eventual funeral and no longer questions anyone’s motives for cremation, allowing them to choose what they wish.
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“Funny, Jewish ... ” don’t you look
JEWS AND NON-JEWS ALIKE CAN MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT JEWISH IDENTITY BASED ON PHYSICAL APPEARANCE. THE RESULTING INTERACTIONS ARE SOMETIMES UNCOMFORTABLE, SOMETIMES FUNNY, AND SOMETIMES DEEPLY ISOLATING.
STORY BY GLYNIS RATCLIFFE PHOTOGRAPHS BY SHLOMI AMIGA
22 SUMMER 2026
2 SUMMER 2026
LAST SUMMER, I was on a video call with photographer Shlomi Amiga, whom I’d worked with on multiple projects in recent years. My company had been hired to create a magazine-style impact report for a Jewish foundation, and I knew I wanted him involved—not because I knew he was Israeli, but because of his incredible talent. It occurred to me, though, that he might not know my own background, so I decided to tell him. “By the way, you know I’m Jewish, right?” I asked. Reader, he did not, in fact, suspect that I was Jewish. His eyebrows went up, and he said, “No way!” I replied that I’m reliably gentile-passing, and no one ever
guesses. He joked that between my (Brit- ish) name and appearance, I didn’t “look Jewish,” and we had a good laugh. We also had a thought-provoking conver- sation about what it means to “look Jewish” or not, and how visibility — or invisibility — can impact our lived experiences and iden- tity. Months later, a collaboration was born. Shlomi wanted to visually explore percep- tions of Jewishness, and I wanted to explore it in my writing. Identifying someone as Jewish by their physical features has a problematic, un- comfortable, and sometimes painful histo- ry. Many of the stereotyped visual cues — a large curved nose, curly or frizzy hair, dark beady eyes—were introduced by Western European white supremacist scientists in the late 19th century to racially categorize Jews (and other marginalized populations) as inferior. The antisemitic media portrayal and Nazi propaganda in the subsequent 50 years that led to the Holocaust resulted in a deep irony that plays out to this day: visible Jewishness is narrowly defined and exclu- sionary by nature. That template places Jewish identity and belonging out of reach for the people it makes invisible or actively excludes. However, they’re often the ones with the most hard-won and intentional relationships to their Jewish iden- tity, precisely because they’ve had to active- ly claim it rather than taking it as a given.
RIKVA
about being incognito, she was never hiding. The community’s imagination was just too small to see her. For a long time, Cooper distanced herself from both the Jewish com- munity and that part of her identity entirely. However, that changed during the pandemic, when she participated in an exhibition at the Fentster Gallery in Toronto that examined being Black and Jewish. The project generated artistic recognition at the international level, leading to invitations from Euro- pean galleries as well as an unexpected form of validation. “Strangely, since letting myself be known, I’ve felt more welcomed by the Jewish community than ever because of my art,” Cooper says. The experience also led to the Right- eous Persons Foundation— a non- profit that funds Jewish arts, commu- nity services, social justice initiatives, and more — approaching Cooper to create an immersive photo and video series around Black Jewish life. That work dominated her life for more than a year, during which she travelled across the United States to various Black Jewish communities and took por- traits of people who were active in those communities. The goal was to capture moments that were sacred to them within their Jewish traditions, but the process also brought Cooper a sense of belonging and Jewish identity. She realized that being Jewish is more expansive than many of us are willing to acknowledge. “When we say Judaism is one thing and one thing only, then of course, we can’t fit within that. It’s too broad,” she explains. “To be Jewish means so many different things to so many different people.” Kate Gardner has spent much of her adult life untangling the complexities
I WEAR THE STAR of David when I know I could not do so and have this false sense of security, especially in this day and age. But why would I? Because this is my space. I belong in this space no mat- ter what others may think. I find it kind of funny when Jews are standing up and saying, Well, we’re not white, or, We’re not colonialists. We’re multicultural. We’re very diverse, when on a basic level, you’re still questioning those of us who don’t fit that Eastern European mould. You’re still othering people like me — implying that, be- cause I present a certain way, I don’t know what it’s like to be Jewish. That’s ironic, given that I work in a synagogue. The majority of the Jew- ish world is various shades of me. That’s the beauty of Ju- daism, of being Jewish: that we were scattered peoples.
Filmmaker Ella Cooper jokingly refers to herself as an “incognito Jew” — de- spite being raised in Montreal’s vibrant, liberal Jewish community and attend- ing Hebrew school— because she’s Black. “There’ve been times growing up within the Jewish community where, obviously, I didn’t fit in,” she says. “I am half Black, and I’ve often been questioned because of that, so it really had me pull back and feel like I wasn’t a part of that community.” The fact that someone raised in such a rich Jewish environment could feel so disenfranchised should come as no surprise. As a Black Jew, Cooper exists at the intersection of two marginalized identities, but is mostly clocked as the most visible one no matter where she is. Even though she makes those jokes
24 SUMMER 2026
SAM
I HAVE Hebrew tattoos on the lower part of my body, and when I travel, I’m always thinking, Oh my God, can I actu- ally wear a bath- ing suit when I go here?
6 SUMMER 2026
of not looking Jewish, because it was her father— the son of a Holocaust survivor —who instilled that understanding of her- self growing up. “I wasn’t raised Jewish,” she says. “I was essentially told I wasn’t Jewish, and I didn’t look Jewish.” She was three when her parents divorced, and she moved with her moth- er to Vancouver, leaving her father in Toronto and flying back regularly to visit him once she turned seven. In those early years, Gardner remembers a game he taught her that they would play on the weekends. “On Saturday mornings, we would go for coffee and a bagel and ‘Jew watch’ for fun,” she says, using air quotes. “This is what I re- member about coming to visit my dad in To- ronto: sitting with him at the bagel shop, and I would say, Is that a Jew? and he would say yea or nay. It’s one of those core memories.”
TOM
I GET JEWISH WOMEN who say to me, If I’d known that Jews could look like you, I would’ve kept looking! Which is lovely, but not very nice to their husbands. At the other end of the picture, I get gen- tiles saying, You don’t look Jewish, to which I usual- ly say, Does this help? [Tom covers his mouth and eyes so only his nose is visible.] The thing about being an under- cover Jew, as it were, is that people feel emboldened to say things around you be- cause they think you’re on their side. I used to teach accent re- duction, and I had a student who was a very respected Italian academic. We were talking, and at some point this person said, Oh yes, but the Jews are always com- plaining. I’m sorry, what? Because she wasn’t a native speaker, my first impulse was to say, Oh, be careful, be- cause the way you phrased that actually sounded quite antisemitic. And she said, No, no. I say what I mean.
VISIBLE JEWISHNESS IS NARROWLY DEFINED AND CAN FEEL EXCLUSIONARY BY NATURE.
The irony of a Jewish man teaching his daughter to identify Jewish people using a checklist of antisemitic tropes, all while eat- ing bagels, is not lost on Gardner now that she’s an adult. But it took years before she understood this wasn’t a normal experience, given her imposed position of outsider. “The characteristics I was told to look for were dark curly hair, big nose, big ears — none of which I had,” she says. “I don’t think I realized it was problematic until I started telling other Jewish people about it, and they reacted with a gasp. I’ve brought it up to him and, to this day, he does not see it as a problem.” Gardner is basically estranged from her father now but has worked hard to reclaim her Jewish identity over the past eight years. She’s gone on a Birthright Israel trip and found camaraderie and connections with other Jews outside of her family— bonding over experiences ranging from the
ELLA
IT’S INTERESTING that aspects of the Jewish commu- nity are taking the time to reflect on where some of their beliefs have become limiting, and how to be more open to the reality that Jews are from all over the world. Jews are Black, white, brown, Japanese, Korean — there’s such a huge range. I feel very lucky that I’m getting the opportunity to reflect on what it means to be Black and Jewish and to make space for other folks who are Black and Jewish, because we’re the most on the margins when it comes to the Jewish community. As a white person, you can walk in and there’s an assumption of belonging. As a Black person? Most of the peo- ple that I interviewed deal with constantly being questioned, to the point that they don’t want to go to synagogues because they just don’t want to deal with that attention.
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