Citing "Deep Disappointments and Concerns," Western Wall Negotiating Team Tells PM Netanyahu: Legal Action Is At Hand
The following letter was sent yesterday to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the negotiating team supporting implementation of the agreement to create an egalitarian prayer space at the Kotel (Western Wall in Jerusalem) - Yizhar Hess, Masorti Movement; Anat Hoffman, Women of the Wall; Rabbi Rick Jacobs, Union for Reform Judaism; Batya Kallus, Women of the Wall; Rabbi Gilad Kariv, Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism; Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, The Rabbinic Assembly; and Rabbi Steve Wernick, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.
How Bigotry and Legalized Discrimination Fuel an Epidemic of LGBT Homelessness
Reform Movement Distressed by Attack in Jerusalem
In response to today's apparent terrorist attack in Jerusalem, the Union for Reform Judaism's President, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, issued the following statement:
Red and Blue and White: Being an American and a Jew
I know from conversations I have had with Israelis, they find it difficult, if not impossible, to understand how Jews can feel so at home, so safe, so self-assured in the United States. For so many of our co-religionists—those who were forced to flee from oppressive regimes in the former Soviet Union, or Ethiopia, or those whose parents and grandparents fled from or grew up in the ashes of state-sanctioned hatred—they cannot possibly understand how we can live so calmly and unafraid in this nation. They can’t quite understand what it means to be an American and a Jew.
7 Jewish Books to Tackle This Summer
Whether you're lucky enough to be lazing on a beach or packed in like a pickled herring on a subway car, take some time to retreat into a good, Jewishy book. Here are seven fresh reads on the lighter side — because it’s too hot out there to get too heavy.
The Promised Land: Not So Far Off
A synagogue is, at its best, a place where each of us can feel that sense of rootedness and connectedness, a place where despite differences of age and experience; regardless of cultural background or class or sexual orientation or physical ability; whether we are "regulars" or newcomers, all of us can feel known and appreciated.
As we complete the Book of Numbers this week, we find the Israelites yearning for just such a place. Over the last eight weeks, our Torah readings have recorded the events of their 40 turbulent years in the wilderness. As we come to the last two portions of the book, Matot and Mas'ei, the Israelites are looking to come home.
Is It True? Not Yet
Our biblical story of creation is stirring, and poetic, but is it true? If we want to know about the creation of the universe, we are not likely to open the Hebrew Bible; instead , we would probably look to science.
Camp Recipe: Summer Camp-Style Fried Chicken
Jewish, Asian, American: Welcoming a New Demographic
As a married couple researching families like ours, we shaour new book shares red our findings about how households that combine Jewish and Asian traditions seem to have vibrant religious, cultural, and intellectual Judaism within them, even when both parents may not be Jewish.
After This Sermon, I Refuse to Be Indifferent
At a recent Friday evening Shabbat service, my rabbi spoke to the congregation and, without singling me out, told me I was indifferent. I wasn’t angry at him for saying so – I was angry at myself because he was correct.