Susannah Dainow, at The Blogs

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Aug 17, 2024, 10:38 PM

The Boons of Cultural Blending: Gong Fu & Shabbat

For the past couple of months, my husband and I have been practicing the art of Shabbat Gong Fu. Gong Fu is a Chinese tea ritual dating from around 1000 CE, which we learned, of all places, in the...

Jul 24, 2024, 3:50 AM

From 'The Sabbath,' by Marc Chagall, 1910. (public domain)

Shabbat replaces our regularly scheduled programs with mandated downtime, which provides recuperative rest, even when we fumble for something to do

Jun 9, 2024, 7:02 AM

Shavuot: In Celebration of Interpretation

This year, for the first time, I joined the oldest book club in the world and made a mostly successful attempt to read the parsha every week. I was a little late to the party: I started well after...

Apr 18, 2024, 11:37 PM

Freeing Ourselves from Mitzrayim: Pesach 5784

Pesach, with its ritual-dinner-party-meets-timeless-story setup, has been my favourite holiday since childhood. This time of year always takes me back to my great aunt’s epic seders, where I experienced the presence of God as a social thing: the raucousness...

Mar 6, 2024, 6:57 PM

On loving anti-Israel artists

Excerpt from an open letter by Writers Against the War on Gaza juxtaposed against view of the destruction caused by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, southern Israel, seen on October 15, 2023. (Edi Israel/Flash90) (Juxtaposition by Times of Israel)

In the midst of all this loss – lives, ideals, friends – I cannot bear losing work I connect with, too

Feb 4, 2024, 6:15 PM

The War Made My Husband, a Jew by Choice, Even More Jewish

In Judaism, it is forbidden to remind converts that they’ve converted; once they’ve been to the Beit Din (the multi-rabbi body that makes decisions about conversions and other matters of halacha) and the mikveh, they are as Jewish as...

Jan 1, 2024, 3:40 AM

On the unexpected side of the generational divide

My father's moral interrogation makes me confront difficult questions: Is Israel doing all it can for Gazan civilians?

Dec 11, 2023, 11:57 PM

Coming Back to the Source: Hanukkah, Then and Now

A memory: it is Hanukkah, and I am too young to know my age. I am cocooned in my mother’s arms, watching the candles of the menorah light up the darkness in our dining room, glint off the polished...

Dec 7, 2023, 4:44 PM

Loaded Words: Militarism, Self-Defence, Chanukah

Militarism. A word with connotations of aggression, dictatorship, darkness. For some Jews, Chanukah’s rededication of the Temple after the Maccabees wrestled it back from the much larger Seleucid Greek army smacks of this unsavoury quality. This is particularly true...

Nov 19, 2023, 9:20 PM

Reflections on War from a Wandering Jew

In early November, sitting at my hotel desk in Lincolnton, North Carolina, Israel is weeks into the war. I know that I am far from home in all senses of the word. I ask because I must ask: in...

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About Me

Susannah Dainow is a writer and recovering lawyer based in Toronto, Canada. She writes fiction, essays, and poetry, often with a Jewish lens. Currently, she is at work on Aliyah, an intergenerational Jewish family story that explores Israel-Diaspora relations.