RJ Blog

by Micah Lapidus Jewish day school sustainability is about more than survival. It’s about maintaining a diverse, vibrant, dynamic, healthy, growing school community. The best way to achieve day school sustainability is by ensuring that we’re fully engaging our human resources.  What does it look like to fully engage our human resources? Here’s a case study. My school, The Alfred and Adele Davis Academy, Atlanta’s Reform Jewish Day School, is a school that loves Jewish music. Jewish singing permeates our school, most noticeably at holiday celebrations and at our weekly Kabbalat Shabbat gatherings. When I came to Davis five years [...]

The entire American Jewish world, it seems, is focused on how to engage or reengage the younger generations of Jews. Foundations are funding, denominations are discussing, and Federations and synagogues are searching for the latest and greatest strategies to engaging these lost generations. Our own Union for Reform Judaism kicked off its Campaign for Youth Engagement, on the theory that unless we engage young people in their early years, we surely will lose them in their later high school years and beyond. While the solution to this contemporary challenge necessarily needs to be multi-pronged and multi-focal, at Congregation Or Ami [...]

Who travels to Miami in the coldest, rainiest week that Florida has seen this winter? I do. My excuse? I was one of 40 or so composers whose pieces (you can listen to mine here) were selected for presentation at the Fifth International Festival held by Shalshelet, the Foundation for New Jewish Liturgical Music – and I was one of only a few composers there who are not professional musicians. Needless to say, it was humbling to be included in such lofty company. As part of the festival, I got to sing in ensembles and perform the works of other [...]

by Marilyn Price I’m not exactly sure when it first began. My guess is that I was 4 or younger, and my brother David was 6. We shared a bedroom, the only one, in an apartment with my folks on the north side of Chicago. They slept on the pull-out hideaway bed in the living room. No TV, no room to roam, just me and my big bro. We had books from the library, but I couldn’t read yet, so although David could have read me stories when we were supposed to be sleeping, he did not. We were compliant [...]

by Cantor Ellen Dreskin Not many of us stop to think about the role of storytelling in our lives. Everything that happens to us is sifted through our own filters, our own history, our own set of circumstances, and settles in our hearts and our brains as a story – our story. If Torah or liturgy or Jewish tales speak to us, it is probably because we feel the truth in these Jewish sources as it intersects with our own experience. How many of us remember our desire to hear the same bedtime stories again and again and again, and [...]

by Rabbi Andy Bachman “This series of pictures should strike a deep emotional response in the heart of every Jew.  No matter how far we have traveled from the observances that were practiced by our fathers, we have a feeling of reverence for the ceremonies themselves, and a respect for those who feel that these Jewish ceremonials constitute a necessary part of religion.” [From the English translation of Dr. Leopold Stein's Oppenheim Pictures, originally published in Frankfort, Germany in 1886] As Richard Cohen has pointed out, in Jewish Icons, Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, one of mid-nineteenth century German Jewry’s most famous [...]

by Harold S. Geller Just a week after the unspeakable mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, I traveled to Newtown, CT, to help organize a musical evening of remembrance and healing in support of the community. This event took place at Congregation Adath Israel, Newtown’s Conservative synagogue, and featured artists and cantors from throughout the country. More than 200 people attended. Rabbi Shaul Praver of Congregation Adath Israel started the evening with a Havdalah ceremony, offering a moving description of the elements of the service: With the candle we bring new light, and new hope, at a moment where [...]

I read Herman Wouk’s new novel about Moses in a single sitting, a tribute both to his skill as a storyteller and the absence of any need to give much thought to the substance of the tale. I guess that, deep in his nineties, Wouk is entitled to the privilege of self-indulgence, but certainly The Lawgiver tells us much more about Wouk than it does about Moses, its purported protagonist. Ingeniously constructed as an assemblage of letters, emails, Skype transcripts, and diary entries as Wouk, who makes himself a leading character in his novel, juxtaposes his role as a consultant [...]

by Rabbi Donald Kunstadt Debating what movie to watch Saturday night, I was glad we did not follow A. O. Scott’s review in the New York Times of Life of Pi. IMBD rated it quite highly, so we went with that opinion. I am certainly thankful we went with the latter. Having studied religion at Berkeley, I found the entire movie a delight of open-minded religious synergism that I only wish was shared by more people in the world. Unfortunately it is not, and what is more, world opinion seems to be only intensifying in the opposite direction, toward greater [...]

by Ilana DeBare We took advantage of our empty nest status to take a week-long trip to Spain this month, the first time in almost 20 years that we could travel at a time when schools weren’t on vacation. In Toledo, we have been staying in a delightful small hotel called La Posada de Manolo that, for me, is as evocative and fascinating as any of the official sights in this historic medieval city. The Sanchez Nunez family turned their 500-year-old home into a hotel that celebrates Toledo’s three religious heritages — Moorish (Muslim), Jewish, and Christian. In a detailed [...]

This week’s New York Times story “With Tattoos, Young Israelis Bear Holocaust” has raised a lot of eyebrows amongst American Jews. The email I got from a friend alerting me to it called the trend “tasteless”; friends who responded all agreed. For my part, I didn’t say a word – mostly because I couldn’t figure out how I felt. A few days later, I still can’t. But let’s back up. The story begins, When Eli Sagir showed her grandfather, Yosef Diamant, the new tattoo on her left forearm, he bent his head to kiss it. Mr. Diamant had the same [...]

Forty-seven years ago to the Jewish-week, Sandy Koufax made the now famous choice to attend Yom Kippur services rather than to pitch in the World Series. It is thus both fitting and ironic that the initial incarnation of a competitive Israeli baseball squad, fielded by a majority of Jewish-Americans, plays its first official game in the World Baseball Classic in the week between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. With Star of David ballcaps replacing the traditional kippot, the Israeli National Baseball Team donned white and blue in front of an adoring and mostly Jewish crowd in Jupiter, Florida. Despite defeating [...]

I’m looking forward to this week for a few reasons. The first is that, somber though it may be, I really enjoy Yom Kippur and the annual opportunity to reflect and repent in a communal setting. And this year, it just so happens that when the seriousness of the chag comes to an end, something more upbeat is just beginning: fall TV season! My DVR and I are looking forward to the return of few of my favorite shows, many of which feature strong Jewish characters. Below, a quick overview of a few of the best. Now tell me: Who’s [...]

Throughout the year, the challot we eat on Shabbat are braided. On Rosh HaShanah, though, we eat rounded challah that’s slightly sweeter than usual. Tina Wasserman, the Reform Movement’s chef in residence, teaches you how to make a round challah in the easy video tutorial below. For a more in-depth how-to, check out Tina’s recipe for round challah, complete with tips on how to give your dough a golden color (turmeric and saffron!) and how to cut your challah so that it doesn’t become a matted blob. Bon appétit and shana tova umetukah!