Ahava is Ahava (Love is Love)
Being a teenager is scary. Being a teenager in the process of discovering her sexuality is even scarier. Being Jewish, however, makes it all a little easier.
Galilee Diary: What Will Become of the Past?
Over 20 years ago, shortly after we arrived in the Galilee and I got involved in organizing encounters for visiting Jewish groups with the local Arab population, a friend told me about the newly opened Museum of Palestinian Heritage in the nearby Arab town of Sachnin.
The Challenges of Jewish Pluralism
I was excited to see the new issue of Reform Judaism magazine opening with Rabbi Rick Jacobs’s message on pluralism. Rabbi Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, writes
Let Your Sermon Be Your Sword: Celebrating LGBT Pride Month in Our Communities
A few years ago, while serving as student cantor at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in NYC, a synagogue for all gender identities and sexual orientations, the trajectory of my professional life was changed in an instant.
Galilee Diary: Torah for All
In the 1970s, the annual conference of the Coalition on Alternatives in Jewish Education (CAJE) appeared on the North American scene and was seen as a revolution in Jewish education.
Summoning the Strengths of My Many Cultures: A Story of Coming Out
My fondest memories of childhood existed within the confines of my grandmother's kitchen. I'd enter her apartment to the smells of traditional Argentine and Jewish cuisine, and it is through her empanadas and knishes that I first grasped the concept of deep family bonds.
The Gift That Keeps On Giving
I want to tell you a story. It's a chapter of my history at Greene Family Camp, a Reform sleep away camp in Texas. It's a lesson about Jewish learning at summer camp – the type of learning that often occurs way before we realize we are learning.
Becoming a Man: My Bar Mitzvah Speech, 30 Years Later
Esteemed rabbis, my dear parents, family, and friends: Shabbat shalom. Thank you for coming to celebrate with me on this day on which I become a man. My bar mitzvah Torah portion, Acharei Mot, is about laws and limitations. Laws, I understand, are necessary, because without them, things go wrong, and people can get hurt. The portion begins with the reminder of what happened to the two sons of Aaron the high priest, and how they died by a “strange fire” because they did not observe the law, and were not careful enough when they entered the holy Tent of Meeting. There are many different kinds of laws in this portion. These laws, I was taught, were given to us by God so that each of us can live a holy life, as part of a bigger, healthy society.
Leading the Way for Equality - Literally!
The occasion was the Santa Cruz Pride Parade in Santa Cruz, CA, in support of the LGBTQI community, and dozens of members of Temple Beth El in Aptos, CA, were there to march.
The Torah In Haiku: Chukat
Death of Miriam
Led the people to complain
"We have no water"
But when Aaron died
The people mourned, thirty days
No complaints mentioned