RJ Blog

by Rabbi Jonah Pesner Will synagogues continue to exist in the future? Will the next generation engage in Jewish life? Is Reform Judaism still relevant? These hard, honest questions underlie the conversations we members of the URJ leadership team have every day with leaders and staff of Reform congregations.  Last week I was honored to be the ordination speaker at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, as a minyan of new rabbis received smicha.  I addressed these questions head on, and challenged this next generation of rabbis to do the same. It is true that the data is [...]

Every camper has their own spark, something that makes them tick, their burning passion. An ineffable desire that makes them excited to wake up each morning. One action item for the counselors is to help each camper find and ignite their spark.

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, [...]

by Rabbi Yair D. Robinson Last Shabbat, we commemorated the birthday of someone very special. A red-headed and red-bearded rabbi, a scholar, a prince of the Reform Movement who is inarguably one of the most important Reform rabbis — nay, one of the most important rabbis, period — of North America. Amazingly, I’m not speaking about myself (though last Shabbat was my birthday, too), but rather of Isaac Mayer Wise, founder of the Reform Movement we take for granted, who was born March 29, 1819. Wise was a great publisher of scholarly texts, a Jewish paper, the American Israelite, still published [...]

By Rabbi Jan Katzew At the 100th anniversary celebration held in Cincinnati, OH, WRJ leaders were hosted for dinner at the American Jewish Archives. As we each were asked to introduce ourselves, I said that I felt it appropriate to bring another person into the room, someone not physically present, but whose presence helped to make the centenary celebration possible – Jane Evans. Everyone agreed. Jane was there. Jane Evans was my friend, and therefore, what follows is more memory than history, more of a subjective portrait than a verbal photograph. Jane was a diminutive giant. She was living proof [...]

by Livia D. Thompson, FTA “And when Israel saw the wondrous power which the Eternal had wielded against the Egyptians, the people feared the Eternal; they had faith in the Eternal and in God’s servant Moses. Then Moses and the Israelites sang this [Shirot Hayam] song to the Eternal.” B’shalach (Exodus 14:31—15:1) “With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions,” (Abraham Lincoln during one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates, August 21, 1858, according to Lincoln on Leadership) Moses and Lincoln, while separated [...]

by Rabbi Ron Symons There are certain verses that were placed as foundation stones of the Jew I aspire to be.  Growing up in Temple Emanu-el of Lynbrook, NY, under the leadership of Rabbi Harold Saperstein z’l, I learned that “You (plural) shall be holy, for I, Adonai your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19) serves as the foundation for the sacred community in which I grew up and towards which I lovingly labor to build on a daily basis with hundreds of members of our community. My professors at the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Jerusalem and New York taught me that [...]

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 P.J. Schwartz In 1947, perhaps one of the greatest discoveries in modern history was made in the caves of Israel’s Judean Desert. The story goes that a young Bedouin boy was wandering in the desert and began throwing rocks at the cave. Startled, the boy heard the sound of a scroll cracking, only to find a ceramic pot that contained the earliest known copies of both biblical and non-biblical texts. This amazing find provides some of the best insight into what life was like during the Second Temple period (520 B.C.E.–70 C.E.), a time leading up to the destruction [...]

by P.J. Schwartz Jewish tradition tells a story where Alexander the Great, during his conquest through the known world, encountered the High Priest of the Temple of Jerusalem. As Milton Steinberg notes, this meeting is probably part of the numerous legends that are based in truth within Judaism. Yet, this story foreshadows what would be to come: the Jewish people would come face to face with the Greek militia and would ensure a future for the sacred Temple. History explains that when Judea became a Greek province, some Jews objected to the Greek way of life. They feared the prospects of being hellenized, completely [...]

By Rabbi Daniel B. Syme The Hebrew word Chanukah means “dedication” and refers to the joyous eight-day celebration through which Jews commemorate the victory of the Maccabees over the armies of Syria in 165 B.C.E. and the subsequent liberation and “rededication” of the Temple in Jerusalem. Technically, Chanukah is considered a “minor” Jewish festival. Yet today it ranks along with Pesach and Purim as one of the most beloved Jewish family holidays. Clearly, the stirring story associated with Chanukah, the rituals that emerged from it, and the special Chanukah games and foods combined to capture the imagination and elevate its [...]

by Stacey Zisook Robinson This poem was written in memory of Kristallnacht (Nov. 9-10, 1938) in honor of those who suffered. Stars littered the ground Crystal fire Shards of ice Glass The smoke of a thousand thousand years Ascended Coiling upwards, twisted With the memory of a People Chosen once in light Chosen again In darkness In ashes and in blood

A spokesman at the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum confirmed that Antoni Dobrowolski, the oldest known survivor of Auschwitz, died in Poland earlier this week at age 108. When the Nazi regime limited elementary education for Polish children to just four years of schooling, Dobrowolski participated in underground education efforts. In June 1942, he was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz, where more than one million people were ultimately murdered by the Nazis. In a documentary recorded five years ago, Dobrowolski said, “Auschwitz was worse than Dante’s hell.” He was later moved to concentration camps Gross-Rosen and Sachsenhausen until being [...]

by Rabbi Bernard M. Zlotowitz According to traditional Jewish belief, the Sabbath has its origin in God’s divine command to observe the seventh day as a day of rest and sanctification. Scholars, on the other hand, are divided in their opinion concerning the origin of the Sabbath, although they all agree that it was borrowed from another culture. Some scholars contend that its origin is Babylonian. The Babylonians believed that the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first, and twenty-eighth days of the month (flowing the phases of the moon) were evil days and, therefore, the physician, the oracular priest, and the king ceased [...]