Rabbi Marc J. Rosenstein

Rabbi Marc J. Rosenstein made aliyahaliyahעֲלִיָּה"Going up." The honor of being called to recite the blessings before and after the Torah reading. Also refers to immigration to Israel, to "make aliyah" to Israel; plural: aliyot. Lit. "Ascent." to Moshav Shorashim in the Galilee in 1990. For 20 years, he directed a nonprofit promoting pluralism and Jewish-Arab cooperation, and from 2009-2015 he served as head of the Israeli Rabbinical Program at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. His book on the struggle to define a Jewish state, Contested Utopia: Jewish Dreams and Israeli Realities, has just been published by the Jewish Publication Society. Rabbi Rosenstein's first visit to Israel was a high school student in the first cohort of URJ Heller High, formerly NFTY-EIE, in 1962.

Choosing Vision Over Victimhood

Rabbi Marc J. Rosenstein
he current violent events in Israel have a strong tinge of déjà vu for me. However, over the past two decades, I’ve had the time to envision what a Jewish state might look like.

Israel's Vaccination Story

Rabbi Marc J. Rosenstein
Everyone has an opinion on what we should have done – but as this crisis has exposed weaknesses in social solidarity, in leadership, in democratic processes here, it has also demonstrated clearly the strength of the Israeli health care system.

Israel: There Must Be Another Way

Rabbi Marc J. Rosenstein

For those of us who believe that, while Israel should be a “nation like all the other nations,” it should somehow not be too much like all the others.