Michele Braun, at The Blogs

Mar 14, 2025, 5:15 AM

Image courtesy of The Getty Museum and supplied by Hadassah.

I’ve been thinking about Leah a good bit lately. Jewish tradition recognizes Leah as a matriarch—along with sister Rachel, mother-in-law Rebecca, and grandmother-in-law Sarah. Many liberal prayer books list these four matriarchs—שָׂרָה, רִבְקָה, לֵאָה וְרָחֵל—after the three patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac...

Mar 10, 2025, 10:20 PM

When Esther/Hadassah Became an Action Hero

Esther Before Ahasuerus by Artemisia Gentileschi, Metropolitan Museum of Art, courtesy of Getty Images. Gentileschi was the most famous female painter of the 17th Century. Image furnished by Hadassah.

When my child was young, maybe four or five years old, I thought that the easiest way to prepare for Purim would be to read the biblical Book of Esther out loud, together. My daughter has always been a...

Oct 9, 2024, 1:49 AM

The Binding of Isaac: What if God Had Approached Sarah First?

In a scant 19 lines, Genesis Chapter 22 tells us that God instructed Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a burnt offering. This notorious incident, known as the Akedah or the Binding of Isaac, is read every Rosh...

Sep 30, 2024, 9:55 PM

Renaming and Reclaiming Eve

Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

This is my plea to give biblical Eve her due. To credit the fullness of her being. To call her by her proper name. Names carry meaning. Sometimes they derive from definitions or translations from another language. Think “Hope” in...

Aug 16, 2024, 12:38 AM

Samson’s Mom: The Biblical Experience of Raising an Unusual Child

'Samson and Delilah" by Lucan Cranach the Younger, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Samson’s adult life is a story well-known to popular culture from medieval art through 1960s pop music. It’s a tale of a strongman falling in love with an attractive woman from his adversary’s camp. The woman exploits his infatuation...

Aug 7, 2024, 10:22 PM

Today’s Challenge: Living Up to George Washington’s Promise

In 2022, my husband and I attended the 75th annual public reading of President George Washington’s August 21st, 1790 letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island. The event, held in the beautiful, historic Touro Synagogue (built in 1763),...

May 4, 2024, 12:39 AM

For Mother’s Day: Remembering Mom and Making Her Legacy a Blessing

The author and her mother Dottie. Photo courtesy of the author.

Several years ago, when composing brief remarks in memory of my mother to present at my synagogue before reciting the Kaddish (mourner’s prayer), I was surprised to find it much harder to summarize her life than it had been...

Apr 17, 2024, 11:06 PM

Mediterranean Memories Begin with Roasted Eggplant and Baba Ganoush

As a kid, I had no interest in eggplant. I mean, it’s purple, and what does it have to do with eggs, anyway? One day—I might have been a young teen—my mother made ratatouille. I suspect she was inspired...

Apr 11, 2024, 11:21 PM

Wise-Hearted Biblical Women Who Knew When to Spin

As with all good storytelling, many of the Hebrew Bible’s narratives focus on individuals. In the background, the text provides glimpses of the wider community—extended families, rulers of foreign lands, the mixed multitudes who exited Egypt to become the...

Mar 30, 2024, 9:34 AM

Women of Valor: Revisiting Biblical Role Models Deborah and Yael  

Deborah and Yael. Two women whose names we know but whose intertwining stories may not be familiar. Through Judaism’s last two thousand years of exile, our forebearers read, interpreted, reread, and reinterpreted Biblical stories through the lens of their...

About Me

Michele Braun, a life member, Elana Chapter, Hadassah Westchester Region, is a member of the Hadassah Writers' Circle. She provides adult Jewish education classes and consulting services to synagogues and community organizations. Her life-long journey through Jewish learning began in the first-ever nursery school class of Temple Emanuel in San Jose, CA. In some form, she has been a student of Jewish life and texts ever since. Michele earned a bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University and an MS in Public Management and Policy from Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. Following a career in public policy with the Federal Reserve System, Michele returned to graduate school, earning an MA in Jewish Education from Hebrew University in 2022 and launching a new career in adult education. Topics of particular interest include Contemporary Torah Study, Jewish Textile Art as Modern Midrash, and making mainstream classrooms more accessible to students with disabilities. Michele and her husband, Norman Bernstein, live in Pound Ridge, NY. Their daughter, S. Judith Bernstein, recently published "In Shadowed Dreams," a novella.

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