Death and Mourning
At least 17 people are dead and more injured in a horrific shooting Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL. Once again, in the wake of senseless and devastating gun violence, we mourn, we come together, we offer words of condolence – and we ask how we can prevent these tragedies from happening again. Says Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, in a statement from the Reform Movement issued after the massacre, I can imagine the Holy One sobbing along with us, distraught over the senseless bloodshed we’ve collectively allowed... Read More
“God spoke to Moses, saying: Tell the Israelite people to bring Me gifts; you shall accept gifts for Me from every person, whose heart so moves them.” How painfully ironic it is that the perpetrator in this week’s school shooting in Florida chose Valentine’s Day to carry out his fatal plot. A day of love, romance, flowers, chocolate, amorous notes, and intimate poems turned into one of hate, fear, bloodshed, tragedy, and death. Cupid’s arrows were destroyed by the high-powered bullets of an automatic rifle. Our greatest gifts were gruesomely gunned down. It is the word gift, t’rumah,... Read More
After my mother died, I wondered if she had ever visited her mother’s grave in Maine, where she grew up. It seems strange now that I did not know the answer. After all, visiting the graves of family members is a Jewish tradition, part of the routine of honoring the dead. But, then again, my mother’s mother’s death was not routine. My grandmother died in 1921 from an illegal abortion. She had four little girls, the youngest of whom was 15 months old and the next youngest, my mother, was about to turn three. I assume that she just couldn’t go through another pregnancy, but I don’t really... Read More
December 14, 2017, will mark the fifth anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. In the years since, 500,000 Americans have been killed or injured by gun violence. From December 6-17, please join the Reform Jewish community and our allies across the country to commemorate the tragedy in Sandy Hook, to remember all innocent victims and survivors of gun violence, and to call for an #EndGunViolence once and for all. So far, 188 events are being planned in 40 states as part of a nationwide vigil, organized in partnership with the Newtown Foundation, the ... Read More
Among the scores and long-held slanders perpetuated against Diaspora Jewry has been the smear that Jews were disloyal to their host countries. Accused of being traitors from the time of Pharaoh to the “Dreyfus Affair” and into the present, Diaspora Jews also have been accused of war profiting. Such anti-Semitic bubbe meises (fables) served many functions, including perpetuating unflattering stereotypes of Jewish inferiority. In other instances, disparagement of Jewish men as physically and psychologically unfit for military service served to bar newly-emancipated Jews of 19th century... Read More
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