RJ Blog

So you want to change the world, but don’t know how? Join the RAC, NFTY and the American Jewish Archives at the Hebrew Union College campus in Cincinnati for a weekend of Jewish learning and community made just for high school students. We all have an obligation to repair the world. Spend the weekend of Oct. 12-14, 2012, learning the most effective way to make a difference. Explore the differences between social action and social justice and delve into our Movement’s rich history of working to create a more just world. Will you answer the call to be one of [...]

Religion and politics go hand in hand in American life. The relationship between the government and religion were of such importance and concern that our founders thought it necessary to write the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses into the First Amendment. But while the relationship between the government as a whole and religious entities has been defined for over two centuries, the American public still demands expressions of faith from elected officials. A recent study by the Pew Forum found that 67% of adults believe that it is important for the President to express strong religious beliefs.  This number has [...]

In October of last year, Rabbi Saperstein, the Director of the RAC and an expert on church-state law, and Oliver Thomas, a noted First Amendment scholar and lawyer, partnered to lay out five rules candidates and the public should follow concerning faith in the upcoming election. The op-ed does not seek to remove religion from politics, but rather it discusses appropriate and inappropriate uses of faith in political campaigns. For instance, the Constitution forbids the use of an explicit or implicit religious test for office, and tax regulations prohibit religious leaders from coercing citizens to vote in a specific manner [...]

Even as technology and science have advanced in the past 30 years, the percentage of Americans who believe solely in the Divine creation of humankind has remained unchanged. In 1982, the first year the Gallup poll asked this question, 44% of Americans answered that humans were created solely by God. A recently published poll from Gallup indicates that 46% of Americans today believe that humans, in our present form, were created by God. This number is only one percentage point below the previous high of 47%, polled in 1993 and 1999. Also in 2012, 35% of Americans say they believe [...]

To this day, I still cannot comprehend how one person and some of his fellow countrymen could have carried out acts that decimated not only the Jewish communities of Europe, but also targeted any group of people they deemed unworthy. The countless men, women and children who were systematically murdered for their religious beliefs, cultural practices, mental capacity, physical ability or sexual orientation are remembered today on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

Across the nation, the role that religion and personal faith play in America’s history and in our elections has become front-page news.  A new report from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that over a third of Americans (38%) think there has been too much expression of religious faith and prayer from political leaders while 30% of Americans believe there has been too little. By comparison, when the same question was posed in 2001, only 12% thought there was too much religious expression from political leaders and 22% thought there was too little. The campaign trail is [...]

Most everyone knows that Monday is a day celebrating the life and achievements of Martin Luther King, Jr., but did you also know that Monday is Religious Freedom Day?  Religious Freedom Day celebrates Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and serves as a reminder of the historic words of the First Amendment.   Unfortunately, efforts are in motion to undermine these watchwords written by our Founders, who experienced firsthand the detrimental effects an established Church and prohibitions on the free exercise of religion can have on a society. As previously mentioned on RACBlog, it has been a particularly rocky year [...]

In October 2011, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran School and Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, one of the most important religious liberty cases of the last decade; yesterday the justices unanimously overturned an earlier ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and held that there is a “ministerial exception” from anti-discrimination laws.  This decision marks the first time the Supreme Court has affirmed a wide range of federal Circuit Court opinions upholding the doctrine of the ‘ministerial exception. The Union for Reform Judaism filed an amicus brief in conjunction with the American Jewish [...]

In his “State of the State” address in early January, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo vowed to end electronic fingerprinting for food stamp, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), benefits.  The practice was discontinued across New York State by Gov. Spitzer in 2007, but it was allowed to continue in New York City at the request of Mayor Bloomberg’s administration.  The governor’s call to end this practice was sure to raise some eyebrows in the Bloomberg administration. The day after Gov. Cuomo’s State of the State address, Mayor Bloomberg began his campaign to vehemently defend his city’s policy.  He stated [...]

Yesterday Governor Andrew Cuomo welcomed his second year as New York’s highest official with the annual “State of the State” address.  He began by recounting the momentous accomplishments of his first year in office, most notably the passage of marriage equality this past June and his success in pursuing a state personal income tax deal with legislative leaders. As 2012 commences, Gov. Cuomo is riding this wave of legislative accomplishments, not to mention an approval rating of 68% among New Yorkers and broad support across party lines.  Outlining his agenda for 2012 in the State of the State address, Gov. [...]

As the American political system roars into action at the Iowa caucus today, the official starting line of the 2012 primary season, we would like to take a moment to remind voters and candidates alike of the “dos and don’ts” of religion in politics.  A few months ago, Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center and Rev. Oliver Thomas, both knowledgeable religious leaders and esteemed constitutional scholars, came together to outline “5 Rules for Faith and Politics in 2012.”  The column, written for USA Today, provides guidelines meant to instruct candidates and religious leaders alike.  It discusses everything from [...]

This post originally appeared on the Washington Post’s “On Faith” column on December 24, 2011. This is a fascinating time and place in Jewish history. American culture, politics, academia and businesses give greater embrace of and acceptance to Jews and Judaism than at any other time or place in Diaspora history. For most Jews, the sense of being an outsider, a stranger in our own land, has greatly dissipated in the past two generations – and for many disappeared almost altogether. The slight awkwardness I remember feeling as a child at Chanukah time in that we did not share in the customs, [...]

The First Amendment clearly prohibits the government from creating laws “respecting the establishment of religion” and was intended by our Founders to prevent government-endorsed, enforced and subsidized religion.  States are bound by this language and are prohibited from funding religious education.  Attempts to implement school voucher programs have been roundabout methods of taxpayer funded religion, as many school vouchers often end up at religious schools. The RAC was monitoring a proposed school voucher program in Pennsylvania and we can now report that the state House of Representatives has voted the proposal down.  But while victory has been achieved in Pennsylvania, [...]

Joel Elliot and Joyce Herman are members of the steering committee of Reform Jewish Voice of New York State. RJV interacts with more than 100 Reform Jewish congregations in New York State. While RJV is focusing on hydrofracking for the entire state of New York, the specific comments on the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Council and this region are those of Herman and Elliot. These comments were published as a letter to the editor in the Rochester City Newspaper today. Despite the masterful job of advocating for our region done by the Finger Lakes Economic Development Council, co-chaired by Joel [...]