RJ Blog

During his trip to Houston earlier this month, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, sat down for an interview with Texas’s Jewish Herald-Voice. Here’s a quick excerpt: JHV: What sort of narrative, if any, drives the Reform Movement today? Jacobs: What drives our narrative is this incredible moment in Jewish history. We are currently the largest movement in Jewish life in the United States. What are we going to be as we go forward? The early founders of the movement articulated something so compelling, that there was a change and uniqueness to the Jewish narrative. It [...]

For too much of Jewish history Jewish women did not count. Consider the opening of the Book of Exodus: “Eleh sh’mot b’nai Yisrael – These are the names of the children of Israel.” (Exodus 1:1) The text then goes on to name only the male children of Israel: Reuben, Simeon and Judah… but there is no mention of the female children of Israel. There definitely were many female children of Israel who were there but the opening of Exodus doesn’t see fit to mention them. The Biblical text seems to be telling us that: “girls don’t matter. Pharaoh also believes that [...]

Two thousand years ago, a rabbi recalled the breadth and depth of what his teacher had given him. Yohanan ben Zakkai remembered his teacher Hillel saying: If all the heavens were parchments and all the trees quills and all the seas were ink, it would still be impossible to write down even a part of what I learned from my teacher. (Sofrim 16:6) I am no Yochanan ben Zakkai, but these words express how I feel about Rabbi David Hartman. I would not be a rabbi if I had not studied with Rabbi David Hartman, the founder and spiritual leader [...]

The United Nations voted yesterday to accept Palestinian non-member observer state status at the UN. In response to this vote, Rabbi Rick Jacobs today issued a statement on behalf of the Reform Movement: We are deeply disappointed in the results of the vote in the United Nations yesterday to accept Palestinian non-member observer state status. We believe this decision will undercut incentives for a final  agreement that must be negotiated by the two impacted parties directly. We are also concerned about the potential for this decision to enable the Palestinians to challenge Israel, both diplomatically and legally, in the international [...]

Va-Yetzeh Ya’akov m’Beersheva – And Jacob left Beersheva. These were, eerily, the first words of the parashah for last Shabbat, which I spent in Israel as part of a mission with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the central coordinating body for 52 North American Jewish agencies. While in Israel, I met with top military and political leaders to learn firsthand about the situation on the ground. But my schedule also included visits with young Reform Jews. I wanted to be with them, both personally and on behalf of our Movement, and to see how they were [...]

URJ President Rick Jacobs’ solidarity visit with members of the Israeli Reform community during Operation Pillar of Defense took him Kibbutz K’far Aza, on the Gaza border, where he visited with with kibbutz resident Chen Abrahams. Please visit urj.org/israel for ongoing updates on Rabbi Jacobs’ trip and the situation in Israel.

This afternoon, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the URJ, lead a conference call/webinar with more than 100 participants from across the Reform Movement, briefing listeners on his recent visit to Israel with the Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations. A recording of that call is available on YouTube and below for those who were unable to join the live event. Please visit urj.org/israel for ongoing updates on Rabbi Jacobs’ trip and the situation in Israel.

In just a few hours, I will be leaving for Israel. As rockets continue to fall on Southern Israel, and as Hamas is targeting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, I believe it is critical that, on behalf of our entire Movement, I demonstrate our solidarity with, and commitment to, the people of Israel. I realize, of course, that Thanksgiving week is a time of travel and family gatherings for those in the United States. But, as the rockets continue to fall, I know that this week will not be “as usual” for many of us. This evening, I will be traveling [...]

Editor’s note: This is the as-prepared text of Rabbi Jacobs’ closing plenary address this afternoon at Jewish Federation of North America’s General Assembly. You can also watch his address below, courtesy of JLTV.com; he starts about two thirds of the way through the video. It’s too simple to think of the world as beginning with our families and ending with those who think, pray, and vote as we do. That isn’t how Jewish tradition views the world, and that isn’t what it means to be part of something larger, more inspiring and more challenging called the Jewish people. For 15 [...]

I was on the phone a few months ago with Marshall Einhorn, executive director of Brown-RISD Hillel, discussing a talk I was asked to give at Brown, where my younger son is currently a junior and of which my older son is an alumnus. As an aside, I asked Marshall who would be leading the campus Reform services for the High Holy Days. When he said he had asked a number of people but without success, I offered to help. “That would be great!” Marshall said. “Let me know if your networks surface someone interested.” “No,” I told him. “Maybe [...]

Two weeks ago, on the morning of Sept. 11, I noticed a woman wearing a traditional Muslim head covering on the packed platform of the train station in Scarsdale, N.Y. Her attention was focused on a billboard ad that announced “19,250 deadly Islamic attacks since 9/11/01” and pre-empted those who might dispute that claim with the refrain: “It’s not Islamophobia, it’s Islamorealism.” I could only imagine what she was feeling. On another morning commute to Grand Central Terminal, I sat on the train with Yawar Shah, a Muslim friend from Scarsdale whom I met years ago at my synagogue when [...]

What will you do better this year? I’d like to do EVERYTHING better this year. Isn’t that what overachievers are supposed to say? But trying to do everything better seems like a recipe for hardly doing anything better. Woody Allen pushed this idea to the limit when he famously quipped “My only regret in life is that I’m not somebody else.” We’d all be wise to stop well short of trying to be other people and concentrate instead on how much we can hope to be better in the coming year. Rather than make a few random resolutions for 5773, [...]

From a profound commitment to the Jewish people and progressive Jewish values, we are joining the campaign to raise the alarm about the appointment of Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu by Magen David Adom (MDA). Rabbi Eliyahu, as the chief rabbi of Safed, has used his position of authority to incite to racism and xenophobia. His extreme views pose a real danger to Israeli democracy and have no place in such a worthy organization. MDA assists people in their most difficult moments regardless of race, religion or creed. We admire MDA for their holy work and we share with them a profound [...]

I ended my last post by saying, “There is much more to tell of my time in Israel – and some of those stories will make an appearance in my next blog post.” I’m delighted to share the next installment of stories from my first trip to Israel as the URJ’s president. Spending time with our Movement’s leaders, teachers, and activists always reminds me of how far we have come as an authentic Israeli movement. Recently, especially, we have achieved some important victories – but there is so much more to do to make sure that Israelis who want to [...]