This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you.

This week I am delighted to be joined by Shana Aaronson, Executive Director of Magen, where she first began as Social Services Coordinator, supporting families where children had been physically and sexually abused.

Magen is dedicated to creating safer Jewish communities in Israel and around the world by developing and implementing programs that foster transparency, prioritizing the well-being of victims, holding perpetrators accountable, and eliminating the stigma surrounding sexual abuse. Their work spans advocacy, education, and direct support for survivors.

Shana also volunteers as a Jewish marital law coach and birth assistant for women with histories of sexual and physical abuse. She lives with her family in Mateh Yehuda, Israel.

We speak about the difficult but essential work of confronting abuse in religious communities, the role of communal silence, how to shift shame from victim to perpetrator, and what change could look like when survivors are believed and supported.

This is a wide-ranging and powerful conversation about truth telling, accountability, and building safer futures.

If you're affected by the issues discussed, please reach out for help. Some community resources are:

Jewish Women’s Aid – Supporting Jewish women affected by domestic or sexual abuse

Magen – Child protection and abuse prevention in religious communities

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you.

I’m delighted to welcome Rabbanit Chamutal Shoval, Director of the Susi Bradfield Women’s Institute of Halachic Leadership at Midreshet Lindenbaum, and a graduate of its rigorous five‑year program as a Morat Hora’a and Manhiga Ruchanit - empowering women with halachic authority and spiritual leadership and enabling female halachic leaders to claim their place in discourse, advisory roles, synagogues, schools, and more, both in Israel and abroad.

She spent two transformative years, alongside her husband and five daughters, at Ohr Torah Stone in Springfield, NJ teaching Talmud and Jewish law at Rae Kushner Hebrew Academy. A WIHL alumna, Chamutal follows in the footsteps of trailblazer Rabbanit Devora Evron. I also reflect on my own journey through the IHSP flagship program and the privilege of learning under Chamutal’s emerging mission.

We explore role models and trailblazing pathways, titles and recognition; how we create meaningful roles for women in the synagogue setting; and encouraging more women to write halacha, publish books, build communities and shape the next 20 years of Jewish life.

Gain rare insight into the mindset and mission of this influential female halachic leader today - her vision for the future, her personal journey, and her impact on Jewish leadership globally.

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you.

Gila Pfeffer is an award winning author, breast cancer prevention advocate and mum of four. Her recent book, Nearly Departed: Adventures in Loss, Cancer, and Other Inconveniences, was the 2024 winner of the Gilda Women’s Book award and had me laughing hysterically and sobbing in equal measure. She describes it as “about losing both my parents to cancer, trying not to get cancer myself, then getting it anyway”.

We answer questions like: why would you choose humour as a vessel for discussing breast cancer and loss? How do you navigate the publishing world as Jew in the current climate? What do you say at a shivah? And, why are there so many photos online of you holding up two large, round objects?

To find out more about breast cancer awareness, take a look at the resources below: Cancer Research UK: cancerresearchuk.org The Breast Cancer Research Foundation: bcrf.org Jnetics - Improving the prevention and diagnosis of Jewish genetic disorders: jnetics.org Sharsheret - the Jewish breast and ovarian cancer community: sharsheret.org #FeelItOnTheFirst

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you.

Today I’m honoured to welcome Sharon Rosen, a leader in interfaith peace building in Israel and around the world. Sharon served as Search for Common Ground’s Global Director of Religious Engagement from 2017 until recently. She also co-founded and directed Education for Life, an NGO that provides tools for the development and wellbeing of children within state educational systems. She was also a faculty member at the Jerusalem Center for Near East Studies, teaching courses on Bible, gender, and contemporary relevance.

From her father’s survival as a prisoner of war and how that projected the family into Israel as some of the first olim, to the challenge of seeking female leaders to connect and build bridges with in the Muslim world, this conversation is really wide-ranging.

Sharon is an expert on designing and implementing interreligious programming that builds collaboration across religions and promotes peace. She is also an experienced facilitator in conflict resolution and strategic planning. Her advice for women and for the world, to amplify feminine traits of caring, compassion, mediation and dialogue over dominance, strength, assertiveness and competition, demonstrates the decades of experience it comes from.

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you.

Rabbanit Nicole Duke is not an obvious leader, but her guidance behind the scenes at crucial times and life cycle events helps countless people through both difficult and wonderful times. First she is a shomeret, a kashrut supervisor enabling kosher functions to take place. She is also responsible for the chevra kadisha - the organisation dedicated to caring for the deceased and preparing them for burial - at the main Orthodox cemetery in London, and she single-handedly runs a hotline advising, guiding and arranging help for people who have just lost a loved one.

We discuss the emergence of women into these roles and what women can bring to the world of kashrut in particular, as well as revealing some of the little known world of what happens when a person passes away.

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you.

I learn every day with my chavruta in Israel using Sefaria sources. So I’m delighted to be interviewing Rabbanit Sara Tillinger Wolkenfeld, Chief Learning Officer at Sefaria, the online database and interface for Jewish texts.

Sara is passionate about Talmud education and about expanding Jewish textual knowledge and its accessibility for all. She writes and teaches widely about Jewish texts and Jewish law, and her current projects focus on applying Talmudic ideas to questions of advancements in digital technology.

We discuss ways she uses AI to improve accessibility on Sefaria, her goals for women’s learning in the future, and worrying trends in access to texts commonly cited by antisemites.

Sara is also a member of Class Six of the Wexner Field Fellowship and an alumna of the David Hartman Center at the Hartman Institute of North America. She serves as Scholar-in-Residence at Ohev Sholom Congregation in Washington, DC and her research and writing focus on the intersection between Jewish ethics and advancements in technology. Sara’s writing has been published in The Atlantic, First Things, and Religion Dispatches, as well as numerous Jewish publications.

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you. 

What’s it like to be part of the Jewish community in Hungary? Home to the second largest synagogue in the world yet a hidden Jewish population that no-one can count, how does it function and what will its future be?

Jewish educator, historian and tour guide Szonja Komoroczy is Vice Rector at the Jewish University of Budapest and has lectured and published extensively in English, Hungarian, Hebrew, and Yiddish. As an educator, her passion is to tell the story behind the facts, and, as a tour guide, to show the stories behind various layers of a city or region - historical, social, and architectural, alike. Behind the scenes, she’s something of an unofficial ambassador of the community.

With a PhD and two MA degrees from Oxford and Budapest, Szonja’s main field of research and interest is Hungarian Jewish history and cultural history, and she is especially intrigued by issues related to changes in national identity and language choice. I think Szonja’s story and that of Hungarian Jewry is not well enough known and I’m really happy for her to share it more widely on this podcast.

For more Jewish learning journeys, connect with us at lsjs.ac.uk/connect. 

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you.

Dr Tanya White is a much loved teacher at LSJS and Matan, and a lecturer in Jewish Philosophy at Bar Ilan University. Tanya lives in Israel with her husband and four girls, and she writes, teaches and lectures on Tanach and Jewish Philosophy. She has a very unique style that is both inspiring and intellectually stimulating and our students here at lsjs.ac.uk love her. I always learn so much from her approach and her take on ideas – really profound and really personal and authentic.

We discuss bridging the gap between israel and the Diaspora, responding to October 7 as an educator, what’s next on the horizon for Orthodox Jewish women, and bringing Pesach Torah concepts to life.

For more Pesach learning and other learning journeys, connect with us at lsjs.ac.uk/connect.

Today, we’re live! I’m at the Orthodox Women’s Torah Leadership Convening with Ann Pava and Elizabeth Walder, trailblazers of Jewish philanthropy, strategically growing the field of Orthodox Jewish women’s Torah leadership.

As we sit onstage at the Convening that Ann and Elizabeth made happen, they reveal how they choose where to invest, and how they go forward as partners with those organisations lucky enough to receive their help. We marvel at how far this field has come - programmes in learning and leadership that are now available for women and girls, and positions held by women that were traditionally reserved for men. We discuss the challenges for Orthodox women seeking a career in Torah leadership as well the hurdles we’ve overcome, and the work still to do in this field.

Anne Pava is the president of Micah Philanthropies. An activist, philanthropist, thought leader and community builder, she loves to mentor and empower women, especially to lead, and to make the world a better place and has been pivotally to the Prizmah Centre for Jewish Day Schools, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Hebrew High School of New England and the Jewish Federation of Western Massachusets. She is involved in many other boards and has won an award for outstanding women philanthropists.

Elizabeth Walder is president and executive director of the Walder Foundation and the board chair of Walder Operations. She is a lawyer by training and led a multicultural immigration law practise helping thousands of immigrants reach their full potential. Later she served as the chief sustainability officer at IDT before establishing The Walder Foundation with her husband. Through its Jewish Life pillar the Walder Foundation founds many initiatives to empower Orthodox women’s Torah leadership and Elizabeth was awarded the Hinda Institute’s Heroines of Hope award in 2022 given to a visionary broad-minded philanthropist who personifies leadership and compassion.

Special thanks to Dr. Elana Stein Hain, who organized the convening. (You can hear Jo's Women's Gallery interview with her here.)

Listen to Jo's interview with Rabbanit Michelle Cohen Farber here.

This podcast is powered by LSJS. Visit lsjs.ac.uk/connect to learn about our Jewish learning journeys & find something that suits you.

Suzy Goldberg is a pillar of the London community who embodies humble leadership. She’s a mother, grandmother, shadchanit (Jewish matchmaker) and Torah teacher of over 30 years. She’s also a graduate of the LSJS BA and MA degree programmes in Jewish Education and she works today with an organisation called Shidduch.im, the UK’s branch of the fabulously-named Saw You at Sinai Jewish dating app, and she’s encouraged, counselled and guided many couples to the chuppah with incredible skill.

We discuss the common thread connecting Jewish education and matchmaking, what it feels like to watch a couple you connected get married, our responsibility to help people find their other halves and of course, how to know if this is the right match for you!