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Melissa Hoffman

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Mar 24, 2026, 6:10 AM

Is This the Food of Affliction? Rethinking Labor on Passover

On Passover, Jews around the world gather to tell a story about labor. We recount the plight of our ancestors forced into backbreaking work, stripped of dignity, denied rest, and treated as expendable. We name this condition plainly: avdut—enslavement—and we...

Sep 9, 2023, 2:21 AM

We need a new definition of Jewish continuity

Markus Spiske, Pexels

Originally released as a blog in 2019, this piece has been updated to reflect recent news and communal work. For all our hand-wringing generation after generation, Jewish communities seem to have achieved the impossible: keeping a faith tradition alive among...

Mar 3, 2023, 7:55 PM

V’nahafoch Hu: Flipping How We Feast to Save Our Future

Food traditions are inseparable from most Jewish holidays, and Purim is no exception—what would the celebration be without iconic cookies (not just hamantaschen) and dishes from around the Jewish world, many symbolizing the story’s miracles and its notorious villain?...

Sep 1, 2021, 10:26 AM

The shemitah year calls us to repair a broken food system

As industrialized nations produce more and more food each year, the earth itself is in peril, for true abundance requires rest

Aug 19, 2020, 9:13 AM

Repairing Our Relationship with Animals Is an Act of Teshuvah

(Pexels)

The yearning for return is real this year. Return to good health, return to in-person, return to normalcy. That universal desire grips us in a moment when our Jewish communities engage in a process of teshuvah, or spiritual return,...

Oct 18, 2019, 12:08 AM

Z’man Simchateinu: Joy during Climate Change

it's a great happiness - to hide in the house during a thunderstorm

My partner and I take a night walk and indulge in dreaming out loud about the future, where we’ll live, what we’ll do, and what we hope to achieve and experience together. We are getting married in a few...

Jun 6, 2019, 9:58 PM

Redefining Jewish Continuity in the Age of Climate Breakdown

For all our hand-wringing generation after generation, Jewish communities seem to have achieved the impossible: keeping a faith tradition alive among a critical mass of followers for millennia. We’re about to observe Shavuot, a holiday that celebrates the Jewish...

Apr 25, 2018, 2:40 PM

Israelis are right to condemn live animal shipments

Screenshot from a 60 Minutes Australia expose aired April 2018 on shipping of live livestock from Australia to the Middle East.

Even meat eaters can avoid consuming the products of this appalling cruelty

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About Me

Rabbi Melissa Hoffman is the Executive Director at the Center for Jewish Food Ethics (JewishFoodEthics.org).

Contact Me