This summer, paranormal activity gets a new set of adversaries as four awkward and highly intelligent women come together to prove not only that ghosts are real, but that women are capable of rebooting a previously all-male franchise.

A few weeks ago, I found myself eyeing a pair of socks decorated with typewriters. I used to love stuff like this, I thought, Why don’t I wear crazy socks anymore?

Oh yeah, I remembered, I’m a rabbi now.

Although I never met him in person, I felt Elie Wiesel was the voice of my own suffering and sorrow; I, too, had fled a repressive regime, leaving home and family behind. I saw in him the possibility of taking my misery and translating it into a hopeful future where humanity could work together and embrace the common good.

After last week’s murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile by police officers, America’s cities erupted in protest. A tragic and incendiary week became even more violent when a gunman opened fire on a Dallas protest, murdering five police officers. The resulting media frenzy was, overall, disheartening. Some of the worst journalism of the week included CNN’s decision to invite Congressman Joe Walsh to defend a tweet in which he declared war on Obama and Black Lives Matter, the Washington Post’s misleading conflation of BLM protestors with Black Panthers, and The Blaze’s Tomi Lahren calling BLM the “new KKK.” Less overtly offensive articles and talk show segments were speculatory, lukewarm, or sensational.

When my allies speak up, their voices can reach people who don’t want to listen to me, but who are willing to listen to someone more like themselves. And more than that, when my allies speak out, they make it clear that my issues matter to them, that I matter to them. I want to pass that on.

Through evocative rendering of a little-known chapter in Jewish-American history, Anna Solomon’s novel The Little Bride takes us from Eastern Europe to the American West in the story of Minna, a 19th-century “mail order bride.”

I don’t think I fully understood the importance of my mother's words at the time. But looking back, this lesson, and being raised in a household that constantly preached passion and hard work over vanity, are some of the things that have shaped me most into who I am today.

While some Jews may struggle to see the connection between their modern, fast-paced lives and traditional Jewish practices, Kohenet Sarah Shamirah Bechirah sees such links as natural. As a Hebrew Priestess and Jewish Meditation teacher, she puts treasured rituals in a fresh context.

Each day when you wake up in the morning, you have a choice. You can be positive, or you can be negative. Sometimes people blame what choice they make in the morning on what is going on in their lives, be it trivial or life threatening issues. I am one of those people.

As a little girl, I dreamed of when I would be in high school and would get to attend my high school prom. I always thought that it would be just like what I saw in the movies - I would be asked by the boy of my dreams, I would go to the mall with my friends to find the perfect dress, and I would spend the morning getting ready with my friends. Then my date would ring my doorbell, we’d take pictures on a grand staircase, he’d sweep me off my feet and away to prom, where we would dance the night away and take home the titles of Prom King and Queen. It would be perfect. 

My summer camp has rats in the walls and rotting wooden decks and haunted basements. My summer camp is hot and cold, made up of love and hate and freedom and restriction and myth and reality. My summer camp is more corrupt than the Brazilian government but still comforting enough to call it a religion. My summer camp is where I grew up two weeks at a time. 

I mourn the victims, along with their families and friends. I grieve for the traumatized survivors whose lives will never be the same. I especially ache for the young members of the queer community who despite the advances we have made, still feel unsafe being out at work, at home, at school, and who will never know what it’s like to step out of the closet for a few hours and dance the night away, unencumbered by fear.