Moishe House’s very first artist-in-residence, Miriam Anzovin. Courtesy: Moishe House 

By: Allison Teegardin

Founded in 2006, Moishe House is an international nonprofit organization that provides space for more than 70,000 young adults around the world to create meaningful, welcoming Jewish communi­ties for themselves and their peers.

When Moishe House Austin opened in 2015, it became the third Texas location joining Houston and Dallas. Originally existing in Hyde Park, the house is now located in Tarrytown.

In Austin, residents of the Moishe House host a monthly Shabbat program, regular wine and cheese mixers, board game nights, and creative Jewish learning events that explore Judaism and its relevance in the present day.

Internationally, Moishe House continues to identify innovative ways to express Judaism and bring it to life. Recently, they introduce a new extension of the Moishe House community – the very first artist-in-residence, Miriam Anzovin, a writer, visual artist, and TikTok content creator, who, in her own words, exists at the intersection of Sefaria and Sephora.

As a Jewish learning influencer with more than 17,000 TikTok followers, Anzovin shares her Daf Yomi journey, which is the tradition of reading one page of Talmud a day, a process that will take seven and a half years to complete.

While she does not consider herself an educator, through her popular TikTok series “Daf Reactions,” Anzovin shares authentic commentary on the day’s reading that embodies her views as a young, feminist, secular, millennial woman.

Anzovin says that her motivation for this project stemmed from a spate of antise­mitic attacks throughout the U.S. beginning in 2020 which inspired her to fully express her Jewish identity in a very public way. With more than one billion users world­wide, TikTok seemed like best the place to be to reach the most people.

Anzovin has become an unlikely celebrity among young Jewish adults because of her down-to-earth, unparalleled voice, and love of Jewish learning. During her residency with Moishe House, Anzovin will help guide Moishe House’s young adult leaders on their own explorations of text, ritual, and community building. Combining modern technology with ancient teachings, she has become an expert in making concepts that are often unapproachable much easier to understand – something Moishe House says it looks forward to her doing for their community builders.

Moishe House is excited for this collab­oration to encourage others to engage with Jewish literature, history, and tradition in creative and dynamic ways authentic to each individual, no matter their level of knowl­edge, belief, or observance.

Learn more about Miriam Anzovin at miriamanzovin.com. Learn more about Moishe House at moishehouse.org.