RJ Blog

By Kevin Proffitt As we prepare to commemorate Independence Day on July 4th, we are reminded that the American Jewish community – nurtured within the constitutional rights and freedoms of the U.S. – is unique to any Jewish community before it. Dr. Jacob Rader Marcus (1896-1995), the founder of the American Jewish Archives, called American Jewry ‘the greatest adventure in world Jewish history.’ Marcus often recalled two examples of the importance of America’s founding documents to its Jews. The first centered on a visit he made to the New York office of noted book collector A.S.W. Rosenbach (1876-1952). Seeing there [...]

by Rabbi Eric Yoffie Originally posted in The Huffington Post I am a religious man who loves his country. I have always been an American patriot, but now, more than ever before, I feel a sense of shared destiny with my fellow citizens. My love of country is not a simple matter, of course. It is rooted in a profound identification with American ideals, and especially with the values of freedom and tolerance that I see as central to the American creed. But it is rooted as well in the feel and the touch of particular places of enduring beauty, [...]

by Larry Kaufman Arguably, over the last hundred years or so, the two most important institutions in American Jewish communities have been the synagogue(s) and the Jewish Federation. Today, just a few minutes in the Jewish blogosphere will lead to dozens of articles claiming that each is in crisis, and that both need to revision themselves and their national organizations. (Note that my use of the word national is meant to encompass, not to forget or exclude, the Jewish communities of Canada.)   The reasons given for the crisis are many – the economy, a generational shift (and the attendant transfer [...]

by Rabbi Eric YoffieOriginally published on The Jerusalem Post Jerusalem Post Blogger Shmuel Rosner has written a book about relations between American Jews and Israel. I have not yet seen the book, written in Hebrew and entitled “Shtetl, Bagel, Baseball,” but I have just seen an English excerpt that appeared in the Jerusalem Post on March 10. Rosner is one of the more interesting commentators on this well-worn subject. While he trends conservative, he has an original, quirky, iconoclastic approach, and one never knows where he will end up. In the March 10 article, he follows this pattern, arguing that [...]

I always knew I would visit Israel.  I wasn’t sure when, but I knew I would get there. Growing up, Israel was a presence. The survival of the Jewish state, in ’67 and ’73, was something my parents spoke about with concern. My close friend Judy spent summers visiting family in Israel and sharing her stories with me when she returned. By the time I was 18, I knew that Israel was the homeland of the Jewish people and a magical place to be. Many years passed until I was able to visit Israel; my first trip occurred only six [...]

by Rabbi Eric YoffieOriginally posted in The Huffington Post All this talk about civility is beginning to make me uncomfortable.Civility refers to courteous and polite behavior. But courteous andpolite behavior is not, in and of itself, a religious value. At times,it is to be subordinated to other, more important values. When instructing the prophet Isaiah about how he is to confront thosewho oppress others, God’s instructions are as follows: “Cry with fullthroat, without restraint; raise your voice like a ram’s horn!” (Isaiah58:1). There is no suggestion here that Isaiah should be civil. What iscalled for is exactly the opposite: casting [...]

by Rabbi Eric YoffieOriginally posted on The Huffington Post For most of the last century, Americans — and especially religiousAmericans — have been expressing concern about who is a hero inAmerica. Religious Americans today are particularly distressed aboutcelebrity culture and the inclination of their children to findsomething heroic in the antics of Lady Gaga or whoever else may be thelatest focus of celebrity gossip. A number of weighty theories havedeveloped about the meaning of America’s celebrity obsession; some claimthat celebrities have been deified by young people who lack a moralcenter and that celebrity worship has become a substitute fortraditional religion. [...]

by Rabbi Eric YoffieOriginally posted on The Huffington Post We Americans have trouble with the idea of sin. It makes us uncomfortable. It runs contrary to our innate optimism. In addition, the culture of American society discourages thoughtful contemplation of the meaning of sin. Popular literature and the psycho-babble of our talk shows explain everything in terms of impersonal social and economic forces that release us from individual responsibility. Religious people are not better than anyone else at confronting the reality of sin. This is as true for conservative religious people as it is for liberal ones. Many conservative places [...]

by Larry Kaufman The news on July 16th of the demise of the American Jewish Congress was accompanied by an excellent article in eJewish Philanthropy recounting the storied history of this once-important organization.  I’d like to add a few footnotes, covering things outside the scope of Jerome Chanes’s excellent article. AJC folded, even as it was deep in discussion about merger with the other AJC, the American Jewish Committee, and the article does a good job discussing the differences between the two organizations, both of which began with missions relating to fighting anti-Semitism:  the Committee was, back in the day, [...]

by Rabbi Jonathan BiatchTemple Beth El, Madison WIOriginally posted on Rabbi Jonathan’s Rabbinical Blog “Where are you on Christmas Day?” So asked Senator Lindsey Graham to Solicitor General Elana Kagan, candidate for associate justice of the United States Supreme Court this past week. Graham was about to launch into a “Q and A” about the extent to which the US Constitution and established law enables the United States to deal with suspects of terror, referring to the averted disaster on a Northwest airlines flight that safely landed in Detroit last Christmas Day. His opening question could have been a bit [...]