Ruthi Soudack, at The Blogs

Ruthi Soudack

Oct 29, 2024, 6:07 PM

Mourning, Dancing, the Labyrinth, and the Stars

I am walking a labyrinth. It is made of shells, rocks, and pieces of coral. I walk meditatively, heel down, toes down, other heel down, other toes down... The labyrinth and I are in the Sinai desert, which has...

Oct 16, 2024, 6:34 AM

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Warplanes and birdsong

Between sleep and alertness, life's stresses come to the surface; I lie awake, worried, listening to the planes, until the birds let me know it's time to get up

Jul 5, 2023, 1:33 PM

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The season of purple thorns

Nature is strong and exposed in Israel: Spring bombards us with its fleeting wonders, even as we shift to summer

Apr 30, 2023, 10:16 PM

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An Ashkenazi woman at the Moroccan boys’ club: Saying kaddish for my father

All the men knew I was at minyan to mourn my dad; clearly, they were saying amen to my prayer in their hearts, if not aloud or consciously

May 19, 2022, 7:40 PM

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The girls at the gate

Ahh, they say, so you admit that there were Arabs here. Yes, I say, I know it was an Arab village.

Oct 5, 2020, 5:40 PM

My Great-Grandmother’s Willow Leaves

Few people know that Ruth is my middle, not my first, name. No one has ever used Mindel, my first name. Mindel Ruth. I'm named after my maternal great-grandmother, my mother's Babba Mindel, whom I never met, the last...

Jul 30, 2020, 2:23 PM

Tisha B’Av, Brokenness, and Longing

Pigeons in the cleft of the rocks at the Western Wall. Photo by Ruthi Soudack

Two years ago on Tisha b'Av, I went to the kotel in the middle of the night. As always, that place on this day threw me into a spin of contemplation, and I wrote the following, about feeling the...

Jul 27, 2020, 2:14 PM

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‘Al Eyleh Ani Bochiyah’ — For these I weep

A bare breasted woman atop the menorah outside the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem on July 21, 2020. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

After 32 years of living in Israel, this is the first time I wish I didn't live here. And yet I'm heartened by the protestors and by a bare breasted woman

Jul 9, 2020, 11:20 AM

Mindfulness and Masklessness

Often, when I tell people that I have a blog in the Times of Israel, they ask what I write about. My usual response is that I write about experiences or thoughts that move me emotionally in some way....

Jun 15, 2020, 3:38 PM

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The big, small, sea-less world

How easily the coronavirus made all of my stomping grounds, from my village to my city and the country and the world, fade from my awareness

About Me

Ruthi Soudack, originally from Vancouver, arrived in Jerusalem for a short visit three days after the beginning of the first intifada, and has been here ever since. She is a traveller, yoga teacher, writer, translator, editor, storyteller, musician, and occasionally, a stand-up comic. (Profile picture by Shira Aboulafia)