{"id":1508,"date":"2025-06-14T18:12:05","date_gmt":"2025-06-14T22:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/?page_id=1508"},"modified":"2025-06-14T18:12:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-14T22:12:05","slug":"melanie-weiss","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/melanie-weiss\/","title":{"rendered":"Melanie Weiss"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.wixstatic.com\/media\/72e1eb_272cbc9b25094483a9e579b3ab43fb3c~mv2.jpg\/v1\/crop\/x_0,y_0,w_768,h_984\/fill\/w_260,h_334,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto\/m_weiss.jpg\" alt=\"m_weiss.jpg\" style=\"width:300px;height:auto\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\" style=\"font-style:normal;font-weight:700\"><strong>About the narrator:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Melanie (Mel) Weiss is the executive director of Beth Israel Synagogue in Waterville, Maine, and an active leader in Jewish communal life. She also collaborates with the Center for Small Town Jewish Life at Colby College, working to sustain and revitalize Jewish traditions in rural communities. Originally from the New York City suburbs, Mel moved to Maine in 2011, embracing a more hands-on approach to Jewish life. She has been instrumental in educational initiatives, ritual observance, and community-building efforts, particularly through the establishment of the synagogue\u2019s mikvah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this excerpt from her interview with Aikins Acheampong and James Fei-Baffoe on January 19, 2025 at Beth Israel Synagogue in Waterville, Mel discusses the most meaningful aspect of helping make their mikvah available to the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/files\/2025\/04\/WEISS_EXCERPT.wav\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Transcript:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s that moment in the conversation that I get to say to people, \u201cOh, you&#8217;re a member of one of these six synagogues or the JCA? There&#8217;s no charge.\u201d People are often like, \u201cThat can&#8217;t be right.\u201d And I get to say, \u201cYes, it is, in fact.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s the opportunity to use the mikvah, but it&#8217;s also the opportunity to use it in an accessible way. Because a lot of the people who have used the mikvah are people who cannot afford the amount of money that it would cost to go anywhere else. It&#8217;s not cheap to dunk in most places. And also that nobody has to ask for financial help. That I get to say it. I just bring up the cost and say, \u201cBy the way, your institution has paid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When people have that, \u201cI can&#8217;t believe that this is something I get to use. And that as I&#8217;m using it, I&#8217;m not also fighting off feelings of embarrassment or shame about my financial situation&#8221; &#8211; that feels so good&#8230;People keep asking, \u201cCan I? Am I someone who can use it?\u201d And that can be financial, or it can not be. I had someone who wrote to me because she said, \u201cI&#8217;m getting married, and I&#8217;m marrying someone who&#8217;s non-binary. Am I allowed to use your mikvah?\u201d I said, &#8220;Of course you&#8217;re allowed to.&#8221; That moment where I get to say, \u201cNo, this is for you. It is for you.\u201d To see how people respond to that &#8211; that&#8217;s my favorite part.&#8221; &#8211; <em>Melanie Weiss<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Melanie Weiss&#8217;s full oral history interview is available through Colby&#8217;s Special Collections &amp; Archives. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>About the interviewer:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Aikins Acheampong and James Fei-Baffoe are Colby College sophomores who are both originally from Ghana. They grew up in Christian households and approached this project with academic curiosity and a commitment to documenting Jewish life in Maine. In the process, Acheampong discovered that the mikvah is an instrument that builds communities. Reflecting on an anecdote from Weiss&#8217;s interview where she recounts how a bunch of parents who had not intended to go in the mikvah at Beth Israel Synagogue ended up changing their minds and diving in, which made all the other parents join in because they thought it was cool &#8211; Acheampong realized that &#8220;this mikvah, thus, has done what decades of community-building struggled to achieve: it has brought people together in a shared, sacred act.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fei-Baffoe also felt inspired learning about the ritual of mikvah. &#8220;I knew nothing, absolutely nothing, about mikvah or Jewish practice when I started this class,&#8221; said James, &#8220;and I&#8217;m ending with such an appreciation for the ways that communities retain and adapt their rituals.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About the narrator: Melanie (Mel) Weiss is the executive director of Beth Israel Synagogue in Waterville, Maine, and an active leader in Jewish communal life. She also collaborates with the Center for Small Town Jewish Life at Colby College, working to sustain and revitalize Jewish traditions in rural communities. Originally from the New York City&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19340,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1508"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19340"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1508"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1636,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1508\/revisions\/1636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/jewsinmaine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}