RJ Blog

As a fellow Eisendrath Legislative Assistant, Raechel Banks, wrote yesterday, “There are many ways to ‘share our bread with the hungry’ (Isaiah 58:7).” She discussed a very tangible  way of helping to combat hunger in our midst (I still have blisters on my fingers from cutting potatoes for 3 hours straight). Today, however, I want to talk about a way of sharing with the hungry that is more difficult to conceptualize, but has no less of an impact on millions of lives – international food aid. There are nearly one billion people around the world with insufficient access to food. [...]

We read in Proverbs, “Train up a child in the way the child should go, and even when the child is old, they will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).  This idea speaks not only to the importance of education in the Jewish tradition, but to carrying out that education in a way that teaches children to be just and compassionate. Thus it should be of particular concern to us as a community when our youth are educated in unequal environments. The Boys Scouts of America (BSA) has long been an example of a concerning environment. Despite the camaraderie, the [...]

On Yom Hashoah we remember the great tragedy that we as a people and as a world faced during World War II over 60 years ago. But how do we use that memory today? To what end does that experience motivate our community? Surely one answer is that we as a people must be particularly attuned to atrocities committed around the world. Yesterday the United Nations observed a Day of Remembrance for victims of the Rwandan genocide. This week marks the 19th anniversary of the beginning of a 100 day period during which hundreds of thousands of Rwandan men, women [...]

For over a decade the Union for Reform Judaism has advised its synagogues to break ties with Boy Scouts of America, to not sponsor troops or allow them to use their facilities. This week it looked like all of that might change, but synagogues wishing to return to the BSA will have to wait at least a few more months. The leadership of the Boy Scouts of America, who only last summer reaffirmed the organization’s nationwide ban on gay scouts and scout leaders, met this week to discuss changing that policy. Some in the organization argued for a new policy [...]

No, I don’t mean Hanukkah. No, I don’t mean the month-long slog toward Christmas. I don’t even mean the impending rush to solve our nation’s fiscal crisis before Congress and their staff tries to get home for Christmas. No, now is the time to apply for the Commission on Social Action’s 2013 Fain Awards! What better way to mark this holiday season than by applying for a chance to highlight your congregation’s impressive social justice work at next year’s Consultation on Conscience.

We’ve been hearing a lot recently about the so-called fiscal cliff: that moment, a few weeks off, when massive spending cuts kick in and major tax breaks expire. There has been a lot of frantic talk and heady discussion about how (and whether) America will dig in right now and face the hard facts about our federal deficit and debt. Amidst all of this it can be easy to ignore the truly crushing debt afflicting countries all across the Global South, and to ignore America’s implications in this crisis and to forget to consider what we could do to help.

Earlier this week the Human Rights Campaign, a frequent coalition partner of the Religious Action Center, released its first ever Jewish Organization Equality Index. Based on the model that HRC has used for years to evaluate corporations, the JOEI seeks to illustrate how well various Jewish communities have sought to welcome and integrate LGBT members. The JOEI surveyed over 200 Jewish organizations and contains a wealth of information and ideas on how the Jewish community can best work toward justice and live the values of equality that we espouse. In the document’s introduction HRC president Chad Griffin says the JOEI [...]

Today millions of Americans will join together to celebrate Veterans Day. This contemporary American holiday grew out of Armistice Day and commemorates the ending of World War I on November 11th, 1919. As we remember this day, when the nations of the world agreed to lay down their weapons and begin the long project of building peace, we as a country must turn our attention to the struggles that confront our veterans after our wars are over. As President Obama noted in his Veterans Day address yesterday, “Today marks the first time in nearly a decade that our American troops [...]

On a recent visit to Capitol Hill I found myself outside of Senator Frank Lautenberg’s (D-NJ) office. Senator Lautenberg is one of only a handful of Senators left who served in the U.S. military during World War II. Outside of Senator Lautenberg’s office is a sign that reads: “As a World War II veteran, Senator Lautenberg wants to make sure we honor the sacrifice of America’s service men and women and created Faces of the Fallen for that purpose.”  Around this sign are placards with small pictures of every U.S. soldier who has died in the wars in Iraq and [...]

The Jewish community tends to think of October as the month to recuperate from the High Holy Days, but October is also the National Mental Health Awareness Month. Mental health and mental health coverage are critical issues for millions of Americans, but there are a number of overlooked issues including the serious mental health concerns confronting the LGBT community. These issues may be frequently neglected in mental health discussions because of the risk of suggesting that queerness is, in itself, a mental illness or necessarily leads to mental illness. Most famously, the American Psychiatric Association listed “homosexuality” as a mental [...]

On August 6th, 2012, Wade Michael Page – identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as having ties to white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizations – open fired at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights responded yesterday by holding a public hearing on “Hate Crimes and the Threat of Domestic Extremism.” This hearing came after the Sikh Coalition mobilized over 150 organizations – including the Union for Reform Judaism, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and several other Jewish groups – to write to the committee and request [...]