Michele Braun, at The Blogs

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...

Feb 22, 2024, 11:16 PM

A Necklace and Other Outward Displays of Jewish Identity

In my memory, I always owned, always wore, the Star of David necklace my mother had given me. It had been a gift to her from an older brother, I think. The design was a simple six-pointed star encircled...

Feb 2, 2024, 12:28 AM

Standing Up and Standing Together: Tzelofhod’s Five Daughters

When parents are allocating money and possessions to the next generation, money is easier to split because it comes in divisible units. In contrast, physical property or a family business can be harder to divide. Years ago, when my...

Dec 21, 2023, 7:36 AM

Behind the Veil, Covered and Seeing

What is a veil? Typically, a veil is a piece of fabric that hides the wearer’s face but does not hide the wearer’s view. Biblical references to veils suggest that they interfere with the non-wearer’s view more than that...

Nov 21, 2023, 1:16 AM

Rebekah’s Choice

What is an individual’s obligation to make God’s assertions come true? For Rebekah, the second biblical matriarch, the answer was easy, even if it required a bit of subterfuge. The book of Genesis brings us into the time of the biblical...

Nov 1, 2023, 8:19 AM

A Jewish Journey

Photo of author's Hatched Jug Tapestry courtesy of the author.

The archetypical human story is that of a journey. Whether the journey is made by an individual, like Esther (Hadassah, in Hebrew), who went from sheltered niece to queen and heroine, or by a people, like the Israelites’ exodus...

Sep 8, 2023, 6:24 AM

Hannah’s Story for Rosh Hashanah

For years, I’ve thought of a selection from the Hebrew Bible traditionally recited on the first day of Rosh Hashanah as “Hannah’s story.” It turns out that this reading, from the first two chapters of the first Book of...

Aug 31, 2023, 1:26 AM

Rosh Hashanah: Round and Sweet

The round shape and sweet tastes of Rosh Hashanah foods match the optimism with which we greet a new year. As we hope for a fulsome and sweet year, filled with health and joy, our menu choices reflect these...

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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