Finding Love Through the Art of Combat

Before it was ever put into words, the connection, between Meg He and Margot Ciccarelli was apparent from their movements. Ms. He and Ms. Ciccarelli both practice Brazilian jiu-jitsu. In 2019, when Ms. He first took up the martial art, she searched the internet for accomplished women whose techniques she could emulate. Her search turned…

A Web Between Her Body and Mine

What I didn’t know is that while I was retelling the story of Miriam’s Cup, my Miriam had arrived home, walked into her house, lay down and died, most likely of a pulmonary embolism. Her liberation was never to arrive. In Judaism, when someone dies, the community sits shomer with the body until burial, keeping…

The Iranian Fashion Revolution

When Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, stepped off the train this past September for her vacation in Tehran, she wore a loose, black chiffon headscarf with five strands of hair showing. The hair was a statement—the five strands symbolizing bold defiance of the regime, en route to a removal of the headscarf altogether. She…