Resources for Exploring Judaism

This is an ever-evolving page with resources.

There are a number categories; resources are not listed in any particular order within a category. There are many possibilities here–pursue those that seem intriguing to you. Go learn something!

There are almost 100 titles here, all chosen with care, from an intentionally wide range of brilliant Jewish voices.*

There are also a myriad podcasts and other websites, community resources for Jews of a wide range of races and genders, abilities and backgrounds, and for interfaith families and beyond.

*I have read most but not all of these books—the ones I have not read are recommended by trusted sources. And some I may have read long ago, and may not remember as well as I think I do. If there is something actively harmful about one of these books, please let me know. (This is, of course, different from something not being your cup of tea!)

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RESOURCES TO EXPLORE JUDAISM

Looking for the post on finding community and exploring more IRL/online? Whether you're a Jew looking to re/connect or exploring conversion, or etc? That's here.

BOOKS AND MORE BY RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG

On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World
Mend the World: Spiritual Tools for Healing, Repair and Justice (Audio Course)
Surprised By God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion
Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting
The Passionate Torah: Sex and Judaism
Yentl’s Revenge: The Next Wave of Jewish Feminism
How To Write a Nonfiction Book Proposal: Including a template, industry tips, and brutal lessons that this author of eight-plus books had to learn the hard way

OVERVIEWS

Judaisms: A Twenty-First-Century Introduction to Jews and Jewish Identities, Aaron Hahn Tapper
Living A Jewish Life, Anita Diamant
A Book of Life: Embracing Judaism as a Spiritual Practice, Rabbi Michael Strassfeld
The First Jewish Catalog: A Do-It-Yourself Kit, Michael Strassfeld
The Rhythms of Jewish Living: A Sephardic Exploration of Judaism's Spirituality, Marc D. Angel

JEWISH LIFE AND PRACTICE

For Times Such as These: A Radical's Guide to the Jewish Year, Ariana Katz and Jessica Rosenberg
The Jewish Holidays, Michael Strassfield
A Guide to Jewish Prayer, Adin Steinsaltz
Talking to God: Personal Prayers for Times of Joy, Sadness, Struggle, and Celebration, Naomi Levy
The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel
Chanah’s Voice: A Rabbi Wrestles with Gender, Commandment, and the Women’s Rituals of Baking, Bathing and Brightening, Haviva Ner-David
Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Toward Traditional Rabbinic Ordination, Haviva Ner-David
Seyder Tkhines: The Forgotten Book of Common Prayer for Jewish Women, Devra Kay
Choosing Judaism: 36 Stories, Bradley Caro Cook, Diana Phillips
The Sephardic Book of Why: A Guide to Sephardic Jewish Traditions and Customs, Rabbi Ilan Acoca

TEXT NERD STARTER KIT

How do Jews read text? The Jews for Exegesis overview is here.

Best book for learning Biblical Hebrew: this one.
One Stop Jewish Text Shopping: Sefaria. It's not perfect but it's good. Can't believe they didn't have this back in the day and I had to actually learn, like, research skills.
Best Bible translation:
- The Fox translation wins for most literal/captures the rhythm of the Hebrew (free online here, buy here). It's my favorite.
- The JPS has a new gender-sensitive edition (everybody, all together: the pronoun for God is God; "ancestors" is a good word; etc.) It's free online here and can be purchased here.

The Alter reaches more for the poetry of the thing; some choices are breathtaking, some I find perplexing.
- I’ll note that when you click on a Bible verse on Sefaria (the free links, above), a sidebar comes up, and “Translations” is one of the options. You can (and probably should) always check a few of those to see the choices that different translators made about the same verse if you're trying to go deeper and don't have Hebrew.

The Torah: A Woman’s Commentary, Tamara Cohn Eskanazi – my favorite one-book Torah commentary for people of all genders.
The Jewish Study Bible, JPS - one-book Bible commentary focusing more on Ancient Near Eastern history and context.
We throw down every week via email and every month on Zoom in the House of Study. Join us.

JEWISH TEXT BACKGROUND

Who Really Wrote the Bible: The Story of the Scribes, William M. Schniedewind
Why Abraham Murdered Isaac, Tzemah Yoreh
- These two books, above, make a great cocktail to see two different approaches to a historical approach to Torah authorship
How to Read the Jewish Bible by Marc Zvi Brettler
From the Macabees to the Mishnah, Shaye Cohen (GREAT history)
The Orchard, Yochi Brandes
- And this is a fictionalization of the early Talmudic (Mishnaic) era. Though I don’t love how she handled a couple of things, it's overall not a bad intro to that world and much better than the better-known As a Driven Leaf. (I also think it could be a killer Jewish studies/Rabbinics course--read The Orchard throughout the semester, doing the history/context and the sugiyot as you go.)
A Bride for One Night: Talmud Tales, Ruth Calderon
The Essential Talmud, Adin Steinsaltz
Four Centuries of Jewish Women's Spirituality, Dianne Ashton, Ellen M. Umansky
The Talmud: A Biography, Barry Wimpfheimer
Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature, Max K. Strassfeld
Rabbinic Creativity in the Modern Middle East, Zvi Zohar
A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969, Noam Sienna

Believe it or not, but there are even more lists here, in an ever-expanding space with lists of books for political education; to read at High Holy Day season (or whenever you need to introspect, whatever your background); gender and spirituality; Israel/Palestine books; b'mitzvah gifts, and more:

PODCASTS

Rabbi Deborah Waxman and Rabbi Sandra Lawson, doing Jewish teachings on personal and collective resilience, with an eye towards both healing and justice work (and intersections therein).
Chutzpod!, with Rabbi Shira Stutman and the actor Josh Malina “bring[s] a Jewish lens to life's toughest questions: Who do I want to be in this one life? How do we work to heal this broken world? And how, dear G-d, did gefilte fish become a thing?” They also have a Substack:
The Jewish Women’s Archive has a podcast about "Jewish women and the issues that shape our public and private lives."
Judaism Unbound is a "project that catalyzes and supports grassroots efforts by “disaffected but hopeful” American Jews to re-imagine and re-design Jewish life in America for the 21st Century."
The Union for Reform Judaism (the Reform movement, basically) has a bunch of podcasts, incl one on Jews of intersectional identities (season one was Jews of Color, season two is LGBTQIA+ Jews), one that’s about Jewish stories, and more.
Jew Too?, with Rabbi Emily Cohen and Rabbi Felicia Sol, is about "celebrating the growing diversity of the American Jewish family."
“The Jewcurious Show is a podcast for people who are curious about Judaism and the Jewish people, whether you are Jewish, converting to Judaism, seeking the Jewish roots of a different faith, or just plain curious."
And, of course, Throwing Sheyd is your favorite Jewish demonology podcast.

A FEW KEY WEBSITES

Sefaria.org, the mega text database
MyJewishLearning.com, basic info about Judaism
18Doors.org, for interfaith couples and families in formation
Disability Justice Torah Circle - a space for Jews with disabilities to build community around Torah and engage Jewish text through a disability justice lens.
Sephardic Mizrahi Q Network for queer and trans Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews
Black Jewish Liberation - a collective of Black Jews building community and political and spiritual power
Lunar - cultivating community and visibility for Asian Jews
Jewtina Y Co - nurtures Latin-Jewish community, identity, leadership and resiliency
KeshetOnline.org queer and trans Jewish resources
TransTorah, ritual, liturgy, essays, videos, some art
JWA.org Jewish Women’s Archive
Mitsui Collective, Embodied Jewish antiracism work
GlobalJews.org- Resources, camp and more celebrating Jewish ethnic and racial diversity
Jewish Convert Collective- By and for Jews by Choice
JewishMultiracialNetwork.org For Jews of color, multiracial families and allies
Jewsinallhues.org Antiracism workshops and consulting
Kamochah.com, Black Orthodox Jewish network
Svara.org, Jewish Torah learning, queer-centric
Trans Halakha Project, filling in the gaps in Jewish law
Transcending Jewish Trauma—every white Ashkenazi Jew in the US needs to see this map
American Ladino League- teaching Judeo-Spanish and its culture in a range of ways
I added a bunch more resources here, don't sleep on them, plus this is a whole guide to exploring Jewish community whether you're re/connecting Jewishly, exploring conversion, whatever.
Some other Jewish queer resources here

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life@lifeisasacredtext.com ↩
This is a reference to a story in the Talmud (Brachot 27b-28a) in which Rabban Gamliel, who was quite the elitist, gets deposed as head of the Sanhedrin and they bring in a new guy (Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah) who then removes the entrance guard to the House of Study and suddenly people pour in to to learn— so the people running things have to add many more benches for people to come hear the lectures. Turns out when you take away the BARRIERS and stop with the GATEKEEPING people want to be part of their sacred traditions, who knew? More on that story here.<↩

Resources for Exploring Judaism

This is an ever-evolving page with resources.

Want more learning?

Sign up for Life is a Sacred Text

You can access all the resources on this page by subscribing for free!

RESOURCES TO EXPLORE JUDAISM

BOOKS AND MORE BY RABBI DANYA RUTTENBERG

OVERVIEWS

JEWISH LIFE AND PRACTICE

TEXT NERD STARTER KIT

JEWISH TEXT BACKGROUND

TORAH AND TALMUD COMMENTARY

THEOLOGY AND SPIRITUALITY

PEOPLEHOOD, ADDING MORE BENCHES AND JUSTICE WORK

HISTORY

PODCASTS

A FEW KEY WEBSITES

(And please feel encouraged to share this page freely; more people having resources is a GOOD THING.)

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