RJ Blog

In just a few years, the use of social media has gone from being the exclusive domain of a few innovative organizations to a required aspect of any organization’s communication plan. One of the greatest challenges, and what has kept many synagogues from greater engagement with social media, has been the lack of guidelines. With the Social Media Policy Workbook for Jewish Organizations, congregations now have at their fingertips the resource for creating those guidelines. The Union for Reform Judaism is proud to be one of the sponsors, along with other leading Jewish organizations, of this Workbook. Partnering with experts [...]

As in many families, we found that the grip of electronics in the lives of our children was becoming tighter. This was not a good thing. In the mornings, our children would claim that they were not hungry for breakfast so they could watch TV. Invariably, this led to a struggle to get everyone out of the house in time for work and school. When they boys returned home, they dropped their bags and ran straight to the family room to turn on the television. To their credit, our sons are multi-taskers: While watching TV, they would also play with [...]

During the year I spent studying in Jerusalem as a rabbinic student, it was impossible to escape the upcoming High Holy Days. Even if one were not at all observant, each day of Elul, the month preceding the Days of Awe, brought an auditory reminder. During Elul, at daily morning services the shofar is blown. While this tradition reminds us that the shofar will be blown on Rosh HaShanah, it also is a wakeup call of sorts. We are reminded of the upcoming Days of Awe and urged to begin preparing for them. Our liturgy, too, offers us reminders and [...]

I was recently going through some old files. To be honest, they were very old files. Amongst reports from high school, I found two Erev Sabbath service outlines. They dated back to when I was the president of my templeyouth group (Temple Judea in the Bronx). They were titled “Folk Sabbath Services” and were dated 1976 and 1977. Many of us in the youth group were veterans of regional NFTY events, including Shabbatons at Kutz Camp in Warwick, New York. In youth group events such as shul-ins, and especially at Kutz, we discovered a different type of Jewish worship. The [...]

When my partner and I were adopting our first child, the adoption agency required that all families it worked with take a class. The class was about becoming a multi-racial family. At one session, the presenter, an adoptive parent herself, prepared us for some of the questions we would be asked, often by perfect strangers. As two white men planning on adopting an African-American child, we knew we were in for it. We have gotten just about every sort of reaction. At my pulpit, one congregant actually asked if we were going to raise our son as a Jew. Did [...]

My grandfather raised three independent daughters. Long before many women worked outside the home, my mother and her sisters had careers. Until each married, they worked in the family business. One aunt went on to have her own business, another worked for aerospace division of McDonnell Douglas, and my mother spent most of her career working in the apparel industry. All were strong women who balanced family, career, and community responsibilities. My grandfather also wanted his daughters to have access to Jewish education and to be able to participate fully in Jewish life. So, back in the 1920s, though raised [...]

I did not grow up in a kosher home. In fact, I refer to the home in which I was raised as “glatt treiff.”  My becoming a bar mitzvah in 1973 coincided with my mother’s personal liberation.  A few months after I became a bar mitzvah, my mother returned to work and the kitchen closed forever.  It re-opened, however, once a year, for one week:  Passover.  We did not change dishes, but it was the occasion for a major spring cleaning.  My father and I would make the long trip by subway down to the Lower East Side.  We would [...]

So often we talk about the “New Jewish Family” as if overnight the Jewish family has radically changed. The truth is our families have been changing for some time. Less than a third of Jewish households are made up of a heterosexual married couple with children living at home. More households are made up of empty-nesters, those who are divorced, and those who have not yet or have never been married. Between intermarriage and adoption, close to ten percent of Jewish households include someone who identifies as other than white. Chances are you know a Jewish family who fits the [...]

How great are your works, Adonai. How very subtle your designs! (Psalms 92:5-6) As a soon-to-be ordained rabbi, I visited a number of congregations while meeting with their rabbinic search committees. At each congregation, the senior rabbi eagerly took me on a tour of the worship spaces. Some sanctuaries were inspiring. Some seemed reminiscent of another era. One, I was told, was inspired by Noah’s Ark. Not immediately seeing the connection, I later thought the ark must have been upside down! One worship space, the chapel of a large congregation, took my breath away.  Before even entering the Joan and [...]

The other night I went to the middle school orientation for incoming fifth-graders. I still cannot believe that my son, Avi, is going to be in fifth grade. The school offers a wonderful after-school program in which students can play sports, take fun classes and get their homework done. I picked up an application form on my way out of the school building. At home that night, I looked over the brochure and began to fill out the application. Before I could even put pen to paper, I was asked for the names of Avi’s mother and father. Now, for [...]

Reading the news reports about the suicides of Tyler Clementi, as well as four other gay teenagers who recently committed suicide, brought back a flood of memories. I know something of what they went through. Not a day of my three years in junior high school went by without someone calling me a “faggot.” Most days it was usually accompanied by a random punch or shove, or knock to the ground. Usually it was at the hands of one or two particular bullies, whose names I still remember 37 years later. This was long before anyone had thought of anti-bullying campaigns [...]

Just yesterday at dinner, my seven year old son asked why we never sign him and his brother up for “Parent’s Night Out.” This is a program run by our local YMCA. Once a month on a Friday evening, parents can drop their children off at the Y for several hours of babysitting. While the parents get to go out, their children enjoy pizza and a movie along with their friends. We explained that Friday evening was Shabbat and a time we spend together as a family. It always involves dinner, either at our home, or at the home of [...]