RJ Blog

by Rabbi Stephanie Kolin There’s a story told about East End Temple in New York City, the congregation in which I grew up. For 16 years, Rabbi Deborah Hirsch was my rabbi and rabbi to many families like mine. One day, a young boy I used to babysit, Matt, was walking with his mom; they were also members of East End Temple. They stopped for a moment on an NYC sidewalk to speak to a certain man. When the man walked away, she said to her son: “Matt, do you know who that was? That was the rabbi from Town [...]

As someone who grew up reading Little Golden Books in which mommies and daddies take care of their obedient children, I love how Maurice Sendak’s stories, by contrast, dive right into the fray of real life—warts and all.  As a librarian, I also appreciate what a pioneer Sendak was and how his stories and illustrations broke barriers in children’s literature.  I love the edgy realness of his characters—and especially relate to bratty Pierre of I-don’t-care fame who reminds me of my young self answering my own mother.  Sendak’s kids are not gift wrapped with pretty paper or shiny bows.  Like [...]

by Rabbi Carole B. Balin, Ph.D. This year marks a double simcha for American Jews. It is the 40th anniversary of the ordination of the first woman rabbi and the 90th anniversary of the first girl to become a bat mitzvah during a worship service. I wonder whether Judith Kaplan – who pioneered the bat mitzvah at her father Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan’s synagogue in 1922, two years after women got the vote – could have imagined that the President of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion would ordain Sally Priesand 50 years later? Could the young Judith have dreamed that, [...]

by Rabbi Denise L. Eger On this 40th anniversary of Rabbi Sally Priesand’s ordination, I am reflecting on the impact of that moment on our own Reform Judaism, the larger Jewish world and the implications on my own life. Rabbi Priesand is not just the first woman rabbi of contemporary times, but she is a rabbi’s rabbi. She has guided both the men and women of our Movement with her grace, wisdom, and inspiration. She has mentored both rabbis and lay leaders with her deep thoughtfulness, sense of humor and her deep humility. She has taught all of us what [...]

Tonight and tomorrow, we celebrate Yom HaAtzmaut, Israeli Independence Day. It is observed on or near the 5th of Iyar in the Hebrew calendar, which usually falls in April. On May 14, 1948, soon-to-be Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion issued a declaration of the State of Israel – which means that this year marks the 64th anniversary of the creation of the Jewish state. Here at RJ.org, we’ve been blogging all month with a special spotlight on Israel, including a few special posts about Yom HaAtzmaut, in particular, and we’re featuring the Reform Movement’s many resources and programs. This week also [...]

I have just returned from eight days touring the sites of Judaism in Central Europe with six teenagers and one soon-to-be HUC student. When I first interviewed at my current congregation, I was asked, “Rabbi, what do you think about our Confirmation trip to Europe?” As I had looked at the synagogue website before the interview and noticed that it highlighted two things – the Confirmation trip and the Adult Education program – I knew that this was an important question. I started with, “I’m not sure why the trip doesn’t go to Israel…” When a murmur ran around the [...]

…At [Akko] also the inhabitants of Zippori of Galilee who (being sensible of the power of the Romans) were for peace with the Romans, received Vespasian, the Roman general, very kindly, and readily promised that they would assist him against their own countrymen. -Josephus, Wars of the Jews 3:2:4 Recently we had the first warm, sunny, dry Friday in months, to which I had been looking forward so I could attack the waist-high weeds that have overwhelmed the garden during the winter. But I had gotten an invitation to the dedication of a newly opened section of the ancient water works [...]

by Rabbi Henry Jay Karp Over 30 years ago, I read an article which reported a statistical study of Jewish observances. The big news in that article was that while many Jews assumed that the most observed Jewish holiday of the year is Yom Kippur, the statistics indicated that by a wide margin it is not Yom Kippur but rather Pesach (Passover). Just the other day I did some online searching to see if this is still the case. While I could not find any current statistical data, what I did find was article after article, from diverse Jewish sources, [...]

When the founders of modern Zionism hoped that having a country of their own would make Jews like all other nations, they didn’t think that the Jews would adopt any of the despicable traits of the anti-Semites among whom they lived in dispersion. The aim of Zionism was not only to liberate the Jews from their perilous existence as pariahs but also to enable them to live by the highest ideals of their tradition. Yet more than six decades after the establishment of the State of Israel that has indeed afforded Jews who settled here freedom from persecution  – and [...]

by Peter Shapiro The authors, Shimon Perez and David Landau, made it clear from the outset that their views on David Ben-Gurion as a man, his accomplishments and failures, as well as his vision for Israel could be considered biased. Perez, the current President of Israel, was his friend and worked with him for many years on issues about which they felt passionately, but on which they were not always in accord. Landau is a lifelong journalist and the former editor of Haaretz.  He was born in 1947, and was more critical of Ben-Gurion.  The authors concede that the book [...]