Jonathan Silin, at The Blogs

Jonathan Silin

Sep 10, 2022, 12:00 AM

On Paying Attention: The Challenge of Yamim Noraim

Since becoming a regular at a small progressive synagogue on Eastern Long Island, I’ve learned that the month of Elul is dedicated to preparing for the holidays ahead. This year the preparations feel more fraught than usual. Not because...

May 1, 2022, 10:07 PM

Memory, Mishkan and Learning to Let Go

Fifteen years ago, at 63, I moved to another country to live with and eventually marry a new partner. In young-old age I found it especially challenging to feel at home in his city, as cosmopolitan as it was....

Sep 10, 2021, 11:31 PM

Called to Account: Learning to Love Yom Kippur

Although growing up in a conservative Jewish home during the 1950s — the laws of kashrut followed, the holidays honored, Hebrew school and B’nei Mitzvah obligatory — I was always caught off guard by the flurry of preparations for...

About Me

Jonathan Silin is a Fellow at the Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto. Formerly a member of the Bank Street College Graduate Faculty, he is the author/editor of 4 books including his most recent, Early Childhood, Aging and the Life Cycle: Mapping Common Ground. His occasional essays have appeared in the NYTimes, Tablet and the Chronicle of Higher Eduations.