RJ Blog

by Lisa Lieberman Barzilai and Vicky Farhi “Across North America, people hunger for real connections.  They want – they need – to be part of meaningful communities.  The URJ’s new initiative, Expanding Our Reach Communities of Practice, is designed specifically to meet that need.  Please join us in this holy work, as Reform congregations come together, taking risks, exploring new ideas, innovating, refining, retrying, and, ultimately, reimaging Jewish life.”  Rabbi Rick Jacobs Congregational communities cannot exist without strong relationships and those that succeed in creating relationships in every area of Jewish life craft communities of vibrancy and meaning. Pirke Avot [...]

by Chris Haley This is the story of a gentile from a small Southern town who found a spiritual home in Reform Judaism, became Jewish, and assumed a professional leadership role in the Reform Movement in New York City. I grew up in Tennessee in a small town named Shelbyville, located about an hour south of Nashville, where there were virtually no Jews living in or around the immediate area – including me. After graduate school, I moved to Atlanta and took a job as Manager of Grants and Contracts for Atlanta’s Jewish Family & Career Services (JF&CS). The position [...]

It’s always the right time to belong to a synagogue. The synagogue—one of Judaism’s most ancient institutions—continues to provide for the spiritual, communal and educational needs of every generation of Jews. That’s what this is all about: your Jewish connection! Perhaps you or someone you know is waffling about whether to join, stuck on one of the many myths about synagogue life. Let’s go through a few of them:

by Lacey Schwartz I just got off the phone with a friend of mine who was planning on enrolling her daughter in a local Hebrew school, a decision she is now reconsidering. Why? After meeting with the school’s principal and expressing her concerns about the unique challenges of race in this setting, the principal smiled and earnestly told her not to worry, “We have had African-American kids before. We are truly a colorblind school.” A nice gesture, but most thoughtful people know color blindness to be negative – and not just for traffic lights and fashion choices. Though well intentioned, [...]

by Micol Zimmerman Burkeman If this were “Sesame Street,” C would be for cookie. If this were “School House Rock,” C would be for conjunction (what’s your function?). But within the Jewish community, C is – or should be! – for collaboration. Words like “collaboration,” “networking,” and “innovation” are dropped so much in both the for-profit and not-for-profit worlds that you would think you were actually living in an episode of “Sesame Street,” with Big Bird teaching Mr. Hooper all about the magic of collaboration. Yet clichés are clichés for a reason, and as the old cliché goes, “Two heads [...]

Want to create a culture that embraces, supports and encourages Jewish choice for interfaith families in your synagogue? Here are 18+ ways, from easy to advanced, that your congregation can begin and continue. Order and display the Union for Reform Judaism brochures “Intermarried? Reform Judaism Welcomes You” and “An Introduction to Sanctuary Etiquette.” Include the words “We welcome interfaith families” in advertising, website and program materials. Take advantage of proven, successful programming for interfaith families that appear in the “Outreach and Membership Idea Book Series.” Send one or more of your lay leaders to the Schindler Fellows Program for Interfaith [...]

by Noah Leavitt Congregation Beth Israel, in Walla Walla, WA – about 10 miles from Oregon and 100 from Idaho – is the outpost of Reform Judaism in rural, politically conservative, southeast Washington. Our congregation, which has been in existence for more than 70 years, has about 30 member units, owns our own synagogue (a converted neighborhood grocery store), and keeps our Torah scrolls in a fireproof John Deere gun safe which we purchased a number of years ago from a local farm supply store. It is frontier Judaism at its best. CBI is also unquestionably the most welcoming congregation [...]

by Allison Rosenfeld I finished my glass of wine and, with a final brush stroke, stood back to look at my masterpiece. I tried to decide if the two people I’d painted were falling from the sky or rising from the ground. Either way, I was happy with my final product at Bottle and Botega, a wine and painting studio in Chicago. This might not be the scene that comes to mind when asked to describe a 20-something studying Torah, and yet here I was, recreating creation instead of my typical Monday night of “The Bachelorette” and a Lean Cuisine. [...]

Judaism commands us to “be fruitful and multiply.” Many couples and individuals fulfill this commandment through adoption, providing loving homes to children who desperately need them. Welcoming Jewish families enlarged through adoption into your congregation requires sensitivity to the unique issues they face. Here are 18 ways your congregational community can welcome and embrace adoptive families. Like most contemporary family stories, adoption is not new to the Jewish people and there are many examples in Torah. Share this information with your teachers when planning meetings and in-service training for Religious School, Early Childhood and Day School. Encourage your teachers to [...]

by Sari Biddelman As a nursery school student at the Rodeph Sholom School, I was asked to define community. I drew a self-portrait in the center of a circle surrounded by my family and closest friends. It was not until middle school when I was asked to consider this term again, that I reflected on what my community means to me and what I can do for it. I have always felt a connection with my synagogue, Congregation Rodeph Sholom in New York City, and made close friends there as I became a bat mitzvah, participated in mitzvah projects, and [...]

A recent study shows that approximately 87,000 Jewish households identify as “multiracial or nonwhite”… in New York alone! What is your congregation doing to ensure that Jews of color feel welcomed into, rather than isolated from, your community? Interracial families and families of ethnic diversity should expect to be welcomed into your congregation just like any other family into your community. Here are 18 ways your congregational community can welcome and embrace interracial families. Let all families know they are welcome before they even walk in the door. Use photographs on your website to highlight the racial and ethnic diversity [...]

by Bracha Yael In 2011, URJ awarded an Incubator Grant to our temple, Beth Chayim Chadashim (BCC) to develop and implement its BCC Live, a live stream and social media program to widen community connections. Founded in Los Angeles in 1972, BCC is the first known lesbian and gay synagogue in the world, and the first gay and lesbian religious institution—Jewish, Christian, or other—recognized by a mainstream religious movement. Initially, our use of technology grew out of Bikkur Cholim (to visit or extend aid to the sick). Starting in the early 2000s, we offered members who were unable to attend [...]

by Andrew B. Simmons The URJ’s Incubator Grant enabled Temple Sholom to enter Chicago’s Gay Pride parade for the first time in June 2011. We are the first mainstream synagogue in Chicago to have ever done so, and we will do so again this year. But the grant was just the “incubator” that enabled an incredibly supportive temple to take its social Justice practice to the next level. Let me explain. For 20 years, my partner Mitchell and I have belonged to Temple Sholom as a family. As far as this temple is concerned, there has never been a distinction [...]

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 [...]