Navigating Identity and Spiritual Life in a Politically Fraught World
April 25, 2024
A college student shares what it is like to be a religious Jew who rejects Zionism and then why more Black women are being drawn to Buddhism.
“...We must be the ones most dedicated to Palestinian freedom.”
April 25, 2024
This week, an unprecedented number of private and publiccollegesanduniversitycampuses have become sites for direct action, protests, and encampments to express solidarity for Palestinians, including at one of the nation’s oldest and more conservative Ivy Leagues – Princeton University. Sara Ryave is a senior at Princeton who identifies as a religious Jewish student and non-Zionist. She joins to share her spiritual journey, navigating relationships and seeing this current moment as a schism erupting between generations.
Sara Ryave, Undergraduate student—in the class of 2024—in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. In 2021, she received a Bronfman Fellowship, a program exploring pluralism and social responsibility for Jewish teens.
There are many other Jewish voices in the United States calling for a cease-fire and an end to the killing in Gaza. One example is the "Seder in the Streets" held by Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice in Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza on the second night of Passover.
“...I get right back on my mat again.”
April 25, 2024
Dr. Toni Pressley-Sanon's latest book, Lifting As They Climb: Black Women Buddhists and Collective Liberation (Shambhala Publications, February 2024), is both a memoir and an exploration of how a growing number of Black Buddhist women have integrated Buddhist practices into their spiritual lives and identities. In a deeply personal and candid conversation, Pressley-Sanon describes the despair and loneliness that propelled her on her search.
