Interfaith Sign-on Letter in Opposition of First Amendment Defense Act
In advance of tomorrow’s hearings on Religious Liberty and H.R. 2802, the ‘First Amendment Defense Act’ (FADA), the undersigned organizations, representing a diverse group of beliefs and faith traditions, write to express our opposition to this measure, (S. 1598/H.R. 2802), introduced by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and Representative Raúl Labrador (R-ID). We would ask that this letter be included as part of the official hearings record.
A Turning Point
The Good Book: Writers Reflect on Favorite Bible Passages
The Bible continues to be the best-selling book in history, perhaps because each reader can identify with some aspect of its ancient text. It is this notion that informs the essays of the 24 novelists, poets, scholars, and journalists who answered Andrew Blauner’s call to write an essay centered on a Biblical book or passage with personal meaning to them.
Personal is Political
Supreme Court Term in Review
Feeling Jewish
When I decided to convert I wondered often, "Would I ever really feel Jewish?" I never could have anticipated that the death of my father, who was neither religious nor Jewish, would be the event that would take me there.
Marching in Capital Pride as a Reform Jew
Welcoming by Example
In the Book of Leviticus, God commands the Jewish people, “v’ahavta l’reacha kamocha,” “love your neighbor as yourself.” Based on this teaching, I stand by the idea that, if an individual comes seeking refuge from his or her home country because he or she is prosecuted or marginalized fo
The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit, by Lucette Lagnado
Houses of Study: a Jewish Woman Among Books
Jewish women for almost five thousand seven hundred seventy years have struggled with a tradition that moved them into a life of modesty, early marriage and motherhood. Formal education was forbidden to women, a point brought home in Maggie Anton's three novels "Rashi's Daughters I, II and III". Women inherited wisdom by what was referred to as Binah, a mystical process where they acquired all the knowledge necessary to sustain their family's needs. The progressive streams of Judaism recently have opened up their doors to women's full participation in all aspects of religious and communal life. The author Ilana Blumberg's journey is that of a woman in love with learning of Judaism whose full participation in the Modern Orthodox world is often blocked by the rules in the sacred texts she reveres.