Erica Brown, at The Blogs

Dec 23, 2022, 3:11 PM

Illustrative. A Hanukkah menorah (Flash90)

When the instructors say they see me, it's sappy, but it works: my holiday workout made me feel visible as a Jew, despite the baseless hate out there

Oct 26, 2022, 2:49 PM

Featured Post

WWJSD? (What Would Jonathan Sacks Do?)

In his absence, I survey what he's written, recall when I learned from him, and work to shift the outsized role politics plays in our lives these days

Sep 6, 2021, 1:00 PM

Featured Post

Why centrist Orthodox living doesn’t make good TV

A young teen receives a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine at the Misgav Ladach hospital in Jerusalem on June 6, 2021, as Israel begins its coronavirus vaccination campaign for 12- to 15-year-olds. (Menahem KAHANA/AFP)

This year has taught us the importance of taking responsibility for our own vigilance, so that when things go wrong, we ask not, 'where was God,' but, 'where are we?'

Nov 17, 2020, 12:24 AM

Featured Post

When scholars die

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks was first and foremost a servant leader. With his death, the world lost a prophetic and courageous voice— and I lost my rabbi

May 29, 2018, 11:02 PM

Featured Post

Done with grades

You want to teach life-long learners? Grow students' souls? Stop crippling them with report card stress

May 1, 2018, 11:03 PM

Marking Time

We are always counting something. We count up to intensify excitement. We count down as a way to quicken the relief when we desperately wish something would end already, like a prison sentence or the school year. In most...

Apr 4, 2018, 8:31 AM

Featured Post

Makes a nice sandwich (generation)

Illustrative: Multigenerational Passover seder. (iStock)

The sweet, broken bitterness of matzah, maror, and haroset captures what it means to care for both children and parents

Mar 28, 2018, 7:12 PM

Featured Post

The 10-second seder

A seder table. (Courtesy, via the Jewish Week)

It will get you to the food faster, but will it really make this night different from all other nights?

Feb 27, 2018, 11:47 PM

Home on the Range?

Jewish education is not a high-paying field, and teachers always value a supplemental income. But bonuses for teachers who carry guns is not the answer. The mere suggestion of it is absurd. Imagine a new and awful reality where...

Jan 31, 2018, 1:11 AM

Is Judaism for introverts?

‘Extroversion,” writes Susan Cain in “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking,” “is an enormously appealing personality style, but we’ve turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must...

About Me

Dr. Erica Brown is the Vice Provost for Values and Leadership at Yeshiva University and the Director of the Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership at Yeshiva University. Her forthcoming book is: Kohelet and the Meaning of Life.