After a career spent telling other people's stories, Eleanor Reissa has finally uncovered her own. It started with 56 letters she found in a drawer while cleaning out her late mother's apartment. They were letters from her father to her mother, just a few years after they had both survived World War II. The letters sent Eleanor on a search to retrace her family history in Europe, which she chronicles in her new memoir, The Letters Project: A Daughter's Journey. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Nahanni Rous talks with Eleanor about how her life has been defined by being the daughter of people who lived through the Holocaust.

Fifty years ago, Rabbi Sally Priesand made history by becoming the first woman rabbi in America. In this episode of Can We Talk?, women rabbis from three Jewish denominations reflect on the milestone. We speak with Rabbi Dianne Cohler-Esses, Rabba Sara Hurwitz, and Rabbi Sandra Lawson about the challenges they’ve faced, and about how their presence in the rabbinate is shaping the Jewish community. This is the final episode in our three-part anniversary series.

This episode included Color Country by The Balloonist from Blue Dot Sessions. 

Hard-boiled egg—check. Greens—check. Charoset, maror, shank bone—check. These are the traditional seder plate items that represent the themes of Passover. Many people have also adopted the feminist tradition of including an orange... but what does it symbolize, and how come so many people have the story wrong? In this episode of Can We Talk?, host Nahanni Rous talks with Susannah Heschel, who created the ritual in the 1980s, about the real meaning behind the orange. She also talks with her aunt and cousin, who introduced the orange to the Rous family seder.  

Use this discussion guide to facilitate a conversation about this podcast episode in your classroom or community.

Fifty years ago, a group of young Jewish women piled into two cars and drove to upstate New York to crash the annual meeting of the all-male Rabbinical Assembly of the Conservative movement. They called themselves Ezrat Nashim and they had a set of demands that included the right to be counted in a minyan, lead religious services, and attend rabbinical school. Their brief but brave action had ripple effects across American Jewish communities. In this second episode of Can We Talk?'s anniversary series, Judith Rosenbaum talks with Martha Ackelsberg, Dina Rosenfeld, and Leora Fishman, three of the women who were involved. Judith's mother, the Jewish feminist scholar Paula Hyman z"l, was also part of Ezrat Nashim. We dedicate this episode to her.

On March 18, 1922, Judith Kaplan made history when she stood in front of her Manhattan congregation and had America's first bat mitzvah ceremony. Judith's bat mitzvah was groundbreaking at the time, but it didn't look like most bat mitzvahs today. In this episode of Can We Talk?, producer Jen Richler talks with Professor Carole Balin about how the bat mitzvah has evolved over the past century, and how girls and their parents have pushed for that evolution. Carole is working on a book based on interviews with dozens of women, representing many decades of bat mitzvah history. Throughout the episode, you’ll hear some of their voices too.

"Pregnant? Don't want to be? Call Jane." That was the catchphrase of the Chicago-based Abortion Counseling Service of Women's Liberation, better known as Jane. Before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal, the women of Jane provided safe, illegal, and affordable abortions to nearly 12,000 women in the Chicago area until seven "Janes" were arrested in 1972. In this episode of Can We Talk?, we hear from Jeanne Galatzer-Levy and Judith Arcana, two of the "Abortion Seven," as well as Jane founder Heather Booth.

Dara Horn’s new book is a departure from her usual imaginative fiction. It’s a collection of essays provocatively titled People Love Dead Jews. She also has a companion podcast called Adventures with Dead Jews. In both, Dara explores the subtler side of antisemitism, in which the role Jews play in the non-Jewish imagination has little to do with real Jewish lives. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Dara Horn talks with Nahanni Rous about the way Anne Frank is remembered around the world, how antisemitic attacks are reported in the United States, and the 3000 years of experience Jews have surviving as a minority culture.

"What would it be like if we could daven and engage in Jewish life without having to endure racism?" says Ilana Kaufman, Executive Director of the Jews of Color Initiative. In a recent survey of Jews of Color by Ilana's organization, most respondents report facing racism and discrimination in majority white Jewish communal settings, and they don't think Jewish leadership is doing enough about it. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Nahanni Rous talks with Ilana about the survey and its implications, and Kasandra Housley, Mirushe Zylali, Gage Gorsky, and SooJi Min-Maranda share personal experiences.  

It's a bird...it's a plane...it's Willow Zimmerman! Willow is a social justice-minded Jewish teenager. She loves a hot salty reuben, bakes her own rugelach, and enjoys hanging out with a stray dog named Leibowitz. She’s also the latest Gotham City superhero. In this episode of Can We Talk?, producer Jen Richler talks with novelist E. Lockhart about creating Willow for DC Comics.

In 1971, photographer Joan Biren, also known as JEB, started doing something revolutionary: documenting the everyday lives of lesbians. This was an era when you could lose everything—your job, your apartment, even your kids— if people knew you were gay. Joan published her first book Eye To Eye: Portraits of Lesbians, in 1979, and the book was reissued this year. In this episode of Can We Talk?, Judith Rosenbaum talks with Joan about her photography and the way her Jewish, lesbian, and feminist identities have intersected throughout her life.