Just For This – Details, episodes & analysis

Welcome to Season 2 of Just For This. Each week, host Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch (she/her), CEO of Women of Reform Judaism, interviews women in leadership about women and leadership. Inspired by the story of Esther, we feature powerful stories of women who stand out in their fields, who have stepped up just for this moment. 

Follow Just For This on instagram: @justforthispodcast

justforthispodcast.com 

Welcome back to Just For This. Each week, host Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch (she/her) interviews women in leadership about women and leadership. Inspired by the story of Esther, we feature powerful stories of women who stand out in their fields, who have stepped up just for this moment. 

This week’s guest, for our Season 1 finale, is Elana Arian. Elana is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and prayer leader. We speak and sing about the strength of community and the power of individual voices and leaders, stepping up just for this moment.

View the transcript here.

If you enjoyed the first season of Just For This, be sure to rate and review us wherever you listen to your podcasts. We’ll be back soon for Season 2.

Follow Just For This on instagram: @justforthispodcast

justforthispodcast.com

Welcome back to Just For This, a new podcast. Each week, host Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch (she/her) interviews women in leadership about women and leadership. Inspired by the story of Esther, we feature powerful stories of women who stand out in their fields, who have stepped up just for this moment. 

This week’s guest is New York Times best-selling author Anita Diamant, whose work includes fiction, journalism, essays and guidebooks to contemporary Jewish life. Her well-known and varied books include The Red Tent, The Jewish Wedding Now, and Period. End of Sentence. She is also the founding president of Mayyim Hayyim Living Waters Community Mikveh and Education Center in Massachusetts. 

We speak about midrash, feminism, menstrual justice, and making meaning of ancient stories and rituals. 

View the transcript here. 

Follow Just For This on instagram: @justforthispodcast

justforthispodcast.com

Welcome back to Just For This, a new podcast. Each week, host Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch (she/her) interviews women in leadership about women and leadership. Inspired by the story of Esther, we feature powerful stories of women who stand out in their fields, who have stepped up just for this moment. 

This week’s guest is Dr. Cochav Elkayam-Levy. She is the Sophie Davis Post-Doctoral Fellow on Gender, Conflict Resolution, and Peace at the Leonard David Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the founding head of the Dvora Institute for Gender and Sustainability Studies and a Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. She established and leads the Civil Commission on Oct. 7th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children.

We note with particular sadness that this week marks just over six months since October 7 and the start of an ongoing war that threatens the safety, lives, and well-being of people in Israel and in Gaza. In our conversation, we also reflect on the urgent need to bring the hostages home, drawing particular attention to the threats of sexual violence against hostages remaining in Gaza.

Content warning for this episode: sexual violence.

Learn more about how Women of Reform Judaism has responded to the war in Israel and Gaza since October 7.

View the transcript here. 

Follow Just For This on instagram: @justforthispodcast

justforthispodcast.com

Welcome back to Just For This, a new podcast. Each week, host Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch (she/her) interviews women in leadership about women and leadership. Inspired by the story of Esther, we feature powerful stories of women who stand out in their fields, who have stepped up just for this moment. 

This week’s guest is Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). Previously, she led the organization that successfully sued the neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and hate groups responsible for the violent Unite The Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. We reflect on antisemitism, democracy, and Jewish safety.

We also speak about Jewish identity and family history, and leading legacy Jewish organizations as millennial women. 

Learn more about the history of Women of Reform Judaism here.

*Note in this episode, we refer to Amy as a lawyer even though she does not hold that profession. Just For This regrets this error. 

View the transcript here. 

Follow Just For This on instagram: @justforthispodcast

justforthispodcast.com

Welcome back to Just For This, a new podcast. Each week, host Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch(she/her) interviews women in leadership about women and leadership. Inspired by the story of Esther, we feature powerful stories of women who stand out in their fields, who have stepped up just for this moment. 

This week’s guests are Rabbi Samantha Frank and Rabbi Rena Singer. Together, they started Modern Ritual as an Instagram account in the spring of 2017. They have built a thriving community, online and beyond, with the goal of inspiring and educating people on how to build beautiful, modern Jewish lives.

We spoke about representation in ritual and spiritual life, the benefits and challenges of social media today, and our views on side conversations during Shabbat services — we were respectfully divided on that matter. And we reflect on what it means to hold space online and beyond for a wide variety of opinions and how people express them online, particularly after October 7. 

Content warning: sexual assault.

Learn more about the work of Women of Reform Judaism to expand access to ritual and spiritual leadership.

View the transcript here. 

Follow Just For This on instagram: @justforthispodcast

justforthispodcast.com

Welcome back to Just For This, a new podcast. Each week, host Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch (she/her) will interview women in leadership about women and leadership. Inspired by the story of Esther, we feature powerful stories of women who stand out in their fields, who have stepped up just for this moment. 

This week’s guest is Sarah Aroeste - musician, writer, cultural leader. Inspired by her family's Sephardic roots, she writes and sings in Ladino, the Judeo-Spanish dialect that originated by Spanish Jews after their expulsion from Spain in 1492. 

We spoke about family stories, musical leadership, the great Doña Gracia Nasi, and Jewish communities from Western Massachusetts to N. Macedonia. We also discuss access to childcare and paid leave as key issues for women’s leadership and equity.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Sarah shares with us about Monastir, the community in N. Macedonia where she traces her family’s roots.
• You can hear some of Sarah’s music in the episode and more of it here.
• Learn more about the work of Women of Reform Judaism on paid family medical leave, which we discuss in the context of access to childcare.

View the transcript here. 

Follow Just For This on instagram: @justforthispodcast

justforthispodcast.com

Welcome back to Just For This, a new podcast. Each week, host Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch (she/her) will interview women in leadership about women and leadership. Inspired by the story of Esther, we feature powerful stories of women who stand out in their fields, who have stepped up just for this moment. 

This week’s guest, Rabbi Diana Fersko, is senior rabbi at Village Temple in Manhattan, and author of We Need To Talk About Antisemitism.

We discuss how Rabbi Fersko came to write a book about antisemitism, and her insights on this timely subject. In the spirit of Queen Esther, we talk about hiding and revealing our Jewish identity. With Equal Pay Day this week, we reflect on pay equity and the progress made by women in the rabbinate and beyond. 

Content warning for this episode: sexual violence.

Mentioned in this episode:

• We Need to Talk About Antisemitism, by Rabbi Diana Fersko
• The Anti-Defamation League’s report on the unprecedented rise antisemitic incidents from December 2023.
• Read more about the months-long denial and recent acknowledgment by the United Nations about violence perpetrated against Israeli women on October 7 and continuing threats to those held hostage in Gaza.
• As we observe the first of a series of Equal Pay Days this week, you can learn more about Women of Reform Judaism and Women’s Rabbinic Network’s commitment to this issue through the Reform Pay Equity Initiative.

View the transcript here. 

Follow Just For This on instagram: @justforthispodcast

justforthispodcast.com

Welcome to Just For This, a new podcast. Each week, host Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch (she/her) will interview women in leadership about women and leadership. Inspired by the story of Esther, we feature powerful stories of women who stand out in their fields, who have stepped up just for this moment. 

This week’s guest, Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss, Ph.D., is Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Provost and Associate Professor of Bible at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Drawing on Rabbi Weiss’s expertise as a Biblical scholar, our conversation grounds us in the story of Esther. We discuss Rabbi Weiss’s role as an editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, and we explore the connection between mentorship and leadership.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, edited by Rabbi Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss
• American Values, Religious Voices, volume 1 and volume 2, edited by Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss and Lisa M. Weinberger
• Cantor Sarah Sager’s charge to the 1993 Women of Reform Judaism Biennial Convention
• Adele Berlin on the book of Esther as a comedy
• Rabbi Weiss speaks about immersing in a mikveh

View the transcript of the episode here. 

Follow Just For This on instagram: @justforthispodcast

justforthispodcast.com

Just For This Podcast inspires women in leadership to talk about women and leadership. Hosted by Rabbi Liz P.G. Hirsch, executive director of Women of Reform Judaism, Just For This is committed to sharing powerful stories of women who stand out in their fields. 

Serving as the women's affiliate to the largest Jewish denomination in North America, WRJ is a network of Jewish women working together to empower women and communities through the bonds of sisterhood, spirituality, and social justice.