Keeping Hope Alive
Growing up in an interfaith family, we went to church on Christmas every year to support our family members in their faith. These holidays may ...
Biography
Alissa is a rabbinical student at HUC-JIR in New York. Originally from Brookline, MA, Alissa discovered her great loves of Jewish life and music early on. She attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and earned bachelor’s degrees in Judaic Studies and Jazz Vocal Performance. After she moved to NYC after college, Alissa sang jazz professionally and then worked at synagogues all over the city, Brooklyn, and Queens. She spent two-and-a-half years living in Israel, where she studied at Hebrew University, HUC-JIR, and The Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies. Alissa has led tefillah all over the world, from Prague to Tel Aviv, from Belarus to Poland, and on both the West and East coasts of the USA. Her favorite color is purple and she is beyond delighted to join and get to know the BJ community.
Articles Written by
Alissa Platcow
Build Houses and Live in Them
My wife, Miranda, and I recently had the pleasure of attending our friend Molly’s wedding. In her vows, Molly lovingly quoted a verse from the ...
How I Find Emotional Release
My younger sister and I have always been very close. In middle school, after spending a summer apart, we missed each other so much that ...
Toward Shabbat: Beha’alotekha
I don’t usually talk about being gay. The reason I avoid it is twofold. When I was first coming out (and even sometimes today), I was ...
Toward Shabbat: Tazri’a-Metzora
On Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Day of Remembrance of Fallen Soldiers, the sadness and grief in the country is palpable. In the U.S., by comparison, our ...
Toward Shabbat: Tetzaveh
In this week’s parashah, Tetzaveh, God outlines to Moshe the priestly vestments that Aaron will wear as the high priest of B’nai Yisrael. Aaron is ...
Toward Shabbat: Va-era
This past weekend, I was blessed to be with our BJ Teens in Arizona, learning about immigration in America. In our first moments of the ...