RJ Blog

Today, thousands of people gathered on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol to express their support for commonsense immigration reform. Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, spoke along with other prominent interfaith leaders from across the country. His prepared remarks follow:

Our cup runneth over! Because of our collective efforts, we flooded the Senate with some 10,000 calls from Americans of faith at precisely the right moment preceding the Senate debate and imminent vote on a bill. Our success is a testament to the dedication of more than 75 diverse religious denominations and organizations who worked tirelessly to promote Faiths Calling and to encourage their members and congregants to call the Senate. Among the top recipients of calls during yesterday’s campaign was Senator Toomey (R-PA), who today introduced a compromise bill with Senator Manchin (D-WV) seeking to expand background checks to gun shows and Internet [...]

By Loree B. Resnik Yes, I admit it. I am a woman, the oldest of the baby boomers, who struggled and championed women’s rights in America. I think my adult children and their spouses might secretly like to ask me to “give it up already,” “chill” or however one says such things today. Still, I continue to struggle with women’s rights, what they mean to societal norms, and how they impact us both here in North America and, of course, in Israel. For I have two “isms” in my life-feminism and Zionism. Commenting on the parashah (weekly Torah portion) that has [...]

At camp, we are always looking for ways to give back and focusing on how we can be the best Jewish role models possible. During staff week of summer 2012, our staff were presented with an opportunity to complete both of these goals, when they were visited by two volunteers from Gift of Life. This charity, works to find bone marrow matches who can donate to those in need. Gift of Life has worked with many of our sister URJ camps and we were thrilled to be able to participate in their Canadian Camp Tour. To hear our Dean of [...]

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 [...]

In advance of an interfaith day of advocacy around gun control, URJ President Rabbi Rick Jacobs sent a letter to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urging Congress to pass stricter gun laws. The letter was sent as part of the Reform Movement’s joint efforts with other faiths to mobilize constituents throughout the U.S. to call upon Senate leaders to help prevent gun violence.  On April 9, as part of Faiths Calling’s Interfaith Call-In Day, thousands of religious Americans will contact their senators to demand comprehensive gun legislation. The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism [...]

by Jacki Hart and Stephanie Rotsky Still relatively green as parents, choosing a school for our then-4-year-old and nearly-6-year-old felt like a major “grown up” responsibility. What would they learn; how would they be taught? Would the school nurture their nature? And could the school selection influence who they might become? The emphasis on social justice and the mission of tikkun olam, repair of the world, drew us to Rashi, a Reform Jewish day school in the Boston metropolitan area for kindergarteners through 8th graders. Little did we understand, six years ago, that Tamchui, Rashi’s unique annual community social justice [...]

“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.” ― Elie Wiesel Sixty-seven years ago perhaps the greatest travesty of the modern era came to a close as the Holocaust was finally was exiled to the dust of history. The images, testimonials and artifacts of Nazi Germany’s attempt to exterminate the Jews, Gypsies, Gays and other minorities have been burned into our collective memories. The principles of industry been used as instruments of death were used as never before in the quest of one race to prove itself dominant over all others.

by Rabbi Everett Gendler An e-mail arrived from the indefatigable Art Waskow reminding us that April 4th was the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The reminder included a photo from a demonstration at the Arlington National Cemetery along with valuable excerpts from King’s prophetic remarks about Vietnam delivered at Riverside Church. The photo showed Rabbi Heschel to one side of King, and this prompted me to look at another photo of that demonstration. In this fuller one, King is flanked on the other side by Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath carrying a Torah, [...]

You’ve probably heard a lot about plagues over the past few days, but I hope you’ll take three minutes to learn about a very real one facing half of the world’s population today. (If you don’t have three minutes, click here.) Six years ago the Reform Movement formalized our support of and partnership with Nothing But Nets, a campaign of the UN Foundation that is solely tasked with ridding the world of Malaria – a disease transmitted through the bite of a mosquito. Malaria kills more than 600,000 people a year and cripples Africa’s economy; yet it is preventable and [...]

Each year, as the grocery stores begin to display their Pesach foods, I, without fail, think to myself “Passover time already?!” Each year, we are commanded to “regard ourselves as if we ourselves went forth from the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 13:8) so that we can feel how sweet freedom is.

I swabbed into the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Registry my first year at the University of North Carolina, and recently, I joined the Religious Action Center to head up its new partnership with Gift of Life.  In building the groundwork for our new partnership, I visited the Gift of Life offices in Boca Raton in early March.  Gift of Life, North America’s only Jewish bone marrow donor registry helps children and adults find donors for life-saving bone marrow and blood stem cell transplants. Transplants offer potential cures for people suffering from blood diseases such as leukemia or lymphoma. The [...]

The Consultation on Conscience, April 21-23, 2013, is Reform Judaism’s flagship social justice conference, where we work together to help advance Jewish values and enlightened and progressive social policies. As always, we bring together Jewish and public policy decision makers for three days of social action and legislative advocacy sessions. We are getting more and more excited as we work to line up the key speakers at the Consultation. In past few years, key people we’ve heard from and interacted with in the last few years are Vice President Al Gore, Sen. Susan Collins, Mayor Cory Booker and Sec. Hilary [...]

by Rabbi Ariana Silverman This past January I had the privilege of serving as the co-chair, along with Arnie Gluck, of the CCAR’s trip to Israel.  One of the foci of the trip was social justice in Israel, and as the trip approached, I grew increasingly concerned that I was about to spend a week hearing about everything that is going wrong in a land I love.  I am delighted that the feeling with which I returned was hope.  And last week, the CCAR Convention’s panel on Israel reaffirmed that hope.   While Israel’s challenges are profound, many of the people in Israel who [...]