Strengthening Congregations

My Tourette Syndrome and I Are Not Your Mitzvah Project

Pamela Rae Schuller

Just opening your door is not a mitzvah; it’s a start. What happens after the welcome is what really matters. It’s the critical difference between being tolerated and being valued – that difference is everything.

How One Congregation is Breaking the Color Barrier

Rabbi Susan Talve

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.

What My Small Alabama Synagogue Taught Me About Diversity

Brian Seidman

In the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel, the descendants of Noah come together to build a tower that would stretch so high it would reach God in the heavens. Most interpretations say that God, seeing this, curses the people so that they speak many

The High Holidays Tradition I Vowed Not to Repeat

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.

Jewish law says we are to fast on Yom Kippur. This is based on the biblical law that on the Day of Atonement, “You shall afflict yourselves” (Lev. 23:27), which was interpreted as early as the return from the Babylonian exile as “fasting” (e.g., Isa. 58: 3)