East Side Story

With Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove

The girls welcome Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of the Park Avenue Synagogue for a very serious conversation about faith and identity in 2024, Anti-Zionist Jews, compassion, and what the future may hold for America's Jews. Here is a photo of him:

BUT FIRST - you get to listen to us chit-chat for 31 minutes or so about Yael’s meditation retreat and other spiritual adventures. A very Zen groundhog for proof:

In the conversation with Rabbi Cosgrove we talk about my personal identity as an Israeli, and whether or not it can exist without a strong Jewish identity. I saw this video the other day and thought it defined my “religion” perfectly, despite not being particularly “Jewish”: It’s of the fields of kibbutz Nahal Oz being plowed again following October 7. The song is an old pioneer song (old being 1970s) written after Yom Kippur (which to my psyche first and foremost means “war”), and the lyrics are especially haunting today:

“It’s not the same field, not the same home, you will not come back - but the wheat grows again.”

Hope to hear everyone’s thoughts on this, I am aware that the Israeli experience is a unique one - so let us know what yours is! How do you see your identity?