Rabbi Joshua Eli Plaut, Ph.D.

Jewish activism in the 1960s civil rights movement gained momentum when four Reform rabbis participated in the first Interfaith Freedom Ride on a Greyhound bus traveling from Washington, DC, through South Carolina, to Tallahassee from June 13-16, 1961. Freedom rides tested interstate public transportation hubs for racial segregation. The rabbis, Israel Dresner, Martin Freedman, Allan Levine, and my father Walter H. Plaut, were joined by eight white Protestant ministers, including prominent theologian Robert McAfee Brown, and six AME black ministers and NAACP activists.

When German Jews arrived in the United States in the middle of the 19th century, they devoted scant time to Hanukkah and directed more attention to Christmas. They perceived this as a way to identify as Americans, to culturally assimilate, and to advance in

We all know that eating Chinese food on Christmas Eve is a sacred Jewish tradition! The origin of this venerated Christmas Jewish tradition dates back over 100 years to the Lower East Side of New York City.

In 1974 in Philadelphia, a small menorah was lit in front of Independence Hall, home to the iconic Liberty Bell. The menorah was crude and made of wood. Five people attended what is now considered to be the first Chabad-Lubavitch public-menorah lighting