Ep. 18 - Rabbi Ruth Sohn

This is Episode 18 recorded on July 1, 2021.

My guest is Rabbi Ruth Sohn, the Director of the Leona Aronoff Rabbinic Mentoring Program at Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles.  She was educated at Yale University and received her rabbinical ordination at Hebrew Union College.

After her ordination she served as a campus rabbi at Columbia University and Boston University and has had many leadership roles in the Jewish community.

Rabbi Sohn lived in Cairo with her family in 2006 and 2012.

She wrote a book about it called Crossing Cairo which is an account of her family’s experiences living in Egypt as religious Jews. 

They were advised not to share the fact that they are Jewish when living there. They learn what it means to hide their identity and then slowly and selectively to share their Jewish identity. 

Here parents were holocaust survivors from Germany.  Regardless she returned and lived in Berlin teaching rabbinical students - during a time of anti-Semitic activity.

She is also an experienced teacher of Jewish meditation and mindfulness practice.

I was very honored and excited to speak with her.