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Voting is power. It holds our elected officials accountable and is also a mitzvah (commandment or good deed). Rabbi Hillel taught, “Do not separate yourself from the community” (Avot 2:4). But what happens when people aren’t counted, and their votes are taken away?
Every voice matters, and every vote should, too – but in many places across the U.S., restrictive laws and practices disproportionately keep People of Color from voting.
As someone who is too young to vote, I am motivated to ensure that everyone who is eligible to exercise this right does so. I live in a state...
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When in-person summer camping couldn’t proceed due to the pandemic, the Union for Reform Judaism switched gears and rolled out RJ on the Go, an interactive platform for families seeking Jewish meaning, purpose, and joy this summer.
Choose from among the following exciting activities:
Jewish Life in Your Family Life (Ages 5-12)Streamed live, this program introduces children and parents to a different middah (Jewish character trait).
- Week 1, June 29-July 3: Sakranut (...
This week, I tell a friend I’d love to chat but actually I have to run Yom Kippur services are starting soon and I’ve got to repent for my sins before the gates are closed. She laughs. “Well, you’re gay, so you’ve definitely got a lot of repenting to do.” It’s a joke, I know, but I still tell her don’t worry. My God is compatible with my queerness. I tell her my love is not my sin, but my tongue stumbles on the words because they ooze out from the pit of my rotten belly. Lies.
You see, the only girl I’ve ever loved boiled my God into mud and told me it was medicine, made mockery of...
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This June marks 60 years since my rabbinical ordination from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. However, those six decades have not diminished my appreciation of the rabbinic mentors who symbolically escorted me to rabbinical school and upon whose shoulders I stand to this day.
My journey began when I was a 6-year-old student at Temple Rodef Sholom in Pittsburgh during Sukkot 1940. While standing on the building’s front steps, Rabbi Solomon B. Freehof, the congregation’s senior rabbi, handed me a bright red apple to commemorate the...
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Reverend William J. Barber II is an American Protestant minister and political activist. He is a member of the national board of the NAACP and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
For the past decade, Rev. Barber has been a partner with the Reform Jewish Community in the work of civic engagement, election turnout, advocacy for the poor, and combating voter suppression. At the Union for Reform Judaism’s 2017 Biennial convention, he spoke about...
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