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Rachele Kanigel

Rachele Kanigel

Rachele Kanigel is a freelance writer and a professor of journalism at San Francisco State University.

Rachele Kanigel carries the Torah at her bat mitzvah. (Kim Komenich)
Posted inFirst Person

Wrestling with the G-word: Why a religious skeptic had an adult bat mitzvah

Rachele Kanigel by Rachele Kanigel March 24, 2025April 4, 2025

I grew up in a house of books. In my family’s suburban home in the 1970s, nearly every room had a bookcase or built-in shelves. But it was a librarian’s […]

"Mohammed" with two of his five children in Concord, where the Afghan family was resettled by JFCS East Bay, October 2021. (Michael Fox/J.)
Posted inNews

Afghan refugee family starts new life in East Bay, with help of JFCS

Rachele Kanigel by Rachele Kanigel October 19, 2021October 19, 2021
Paula Pretlow (right) with her daughter Alison in Jerusalem.
Posted inBay Area, Analysis, Jewish Life

Jews of color, once sidelined, now being recruited by Jewish agencies

Rachele Kanigel by Rachele Kanigel August 5, 2021March 10, 2025
Muslim volunteers assemble snack and hygiene packs at Masjid-e-Mohammedi in Fremont, part of a day of cooperation between the mosque and Temple Beth Torah, May 2021. (Photo/Mufaddal Ezzy)
Posted inBay Area

Muslims and Jews team up to help unhoused in Fremont

Rachele Kanigel by Rachele Kanigel May 19, 2021May 25, 2021
a young white man with a closely cropped beard sits in the crook of a tree
Posted inNews

Program created to honor local day school grad who died in nature

Rachele Kanigel by Rachele Kanigel April 15, 2021April 16, 2021
Josh Krafchin at his weekly free challah pick-up. (Photo/Rachele Kanigel)
Posted inJewish Life

Oakland man starts handing out free challah — and messages for a better world

Rachele Kanigel by Rachele Kanigel June 11, 2020June 23, 2020
Luis, 63, an immigrant from Honduras, is currently sheltering in place at Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont. (Photo/Rachele S. Kanigel)
Posted inBay Area

From ICE detention to quarantine in an East Bay synagogue

Rachele Kanigel by Rachele Kanigel May 14, 2020May 18, 2020

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