Celebrating Pride Month by Advocating for Equality
One of the first things we learn in the Torah from the story of creation is that humans were created b’tzelem Elohim – in the holy image of G-d (Genesis 1:27).
Here's How to Advocate for Equality This Pride Month and Beyond
The Reform Jewish Movement is encouraged to see the House prioritizing issues directly impacting the lives of LGBTQ+ Americans, but the Senate has yet to consider the Equality Act or LGBTQ+ provisions in a COVID-19 response bill. That is where we, as a people committed to social justice, have a role to play.
The Struggle to Build a Loving, Accepting, and Ethical Israel
A classmate recently snapped a photo of a billboard promoting Israel’s right-wing Yachad party that read: “So there won’t be a child with a father and a father!”
State RFRAs: Disrupting the Balance
This Pride Month, Break the Glass
How to Help Combat the “Perpetual Stranger Status” of Jews of Color
Jews come in all colors, and our diaspora is beautiful and vast! North Africa and the Middle East are among the places from which Jews originated, and we have lived on every continent. We’re a global, multiracial people that’s growing more racially and ethnically diverse through interfaith and interracial marriage, conversion, and adoption.
I Hope My Father Would Be Proud
As part of a recent interfaith Holocaust memorial service, I delivered a sermon at the historic St. Giles Cathedral, the Mother Church of Scotland; I’m told I was the first rabbi ever to do so. I consider it more than a coincidence that the event took place on the 45th anniversary of my father’s death, a connection that is particularly stark because my father was a Holocaust survivor.
When the Holy Act of Kneeling Becomes a Weapon
This Shabbat, recite these 15 words of this ancient and powerful b’racha. Take a knee to show your vulnerability. Take a knee in protest and offer this blessing with the hopes of truly bringing a sense of peace and wholeness at a time when it is so deeply needed.
How One Congregation is Breaking the Color Barrier
I know we have a long way to go, but for this congregation, situated in the city just a few miles from the Old Court House where the slave Dred Scott lost his case for freedom, I have hope that we are chipping away at the racism that plagues us.
Not All Rebellions Look (or End) Like Korach's Did
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States this year, Rabbi Carole Balin, Ph.D., is sharing eight chapters of an "alternative Book of Numbers” designed to tell the stories of Jewish women who combined civic engagement with Jewish values in a 40-year struggle “in the wilderness” to pass the 19th Amendment.