RJ Blog

The simple answer is yes, but the reasons are more involved and the process of our involvement a bit arcane. Politics is the only contact sport in Israel. Our movement is a non partisan player in that game through our Israel Reform Movement and ARZA as part of the WZO. We want the Government of Israel to support our values just as we support their security and sovereignty. Yes, we care who governs Israel and so we care about their elections as well. ARZA and our Movement access the public square in Israel in many ways. The organizational path is [...]

This post is part our weekly Get Out the Vote 2012 series, focusing on ways to promote civic engagement in your Jewish community and highlighting portions from the RAC’s Get Out the Vote 2012 guide. Check back every Monday for new updates. As heirs to a tradition of civic engagement, Americans Jews must participate in elections to ensure that our country’s policies at the local, state and national levels reflect our commitment to social justice. In Talmud B’rachot 55a, we are reminded that “A ruler is not to be appointed unless the community is first consulted,” illustrating the importance of [...]

(originally posted on The Huffington Post) I am a person of liberal convictions, and I spend most of my time with other liberals. Many of my friends share my liberal political views but recoil from my liberal religious beliefs. The reason that they give most frequently is that “religion is divisive and conservative.” My answer is always the same: “You are absolutely right.” Religion, I tell them, is divisive because it deals with important matters — above all, the search for holiness and God and the struggle to determine the ultimate values that guide our lives. As human beings contend [...]

Where else but at a WRJ Assembly would you hear Waco-born, Baptist-bred Cecile Richards talk about the importance of ‘tikkun olam‘ and being ‘verklempt’ upon her first visit to Israel with Jewish women? Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and daughter of former Texas governor Ann Richards, reminded participants at the WRJ Assembly of how important our continued activism is in an age when conservative elected officials would undermine decades of progress in women’s health and reproductive rights to pursue a right-wing political agenda.

Just before the High Holy Days, Rabbi Steve Gutow of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs asked me to join a group of Jewish and congressional leaders in a project called the Food Stamp Challenge. I was somewhat aware of the Food Stamp Challenge because, among others, Rabbi David Saperstein, who directs our Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (RAC) in Washington, had participated last year and he had written about it. A number of members of the RAC staff took the challenge this year as well. But being aware and actually participating were two different things!By accepting his invitation, [...]

by Rabbi Eric YoffieOriginally 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, and [...]

by Rabbi Eric Yoffie(originally posted in The Huffington Post) The political season is upon us. The debates have begun and the primaries are approaching. As always, we hear a great deal about the religious beliefs of the candidates. Since the economy is at the center of everyone’s concern, it would be wise to see what the Bible has to say about economic issues. And since those most outspoken about Biblical values tend to be conservatives, it would be interesting to consider whether or not the Bible is a “small government” book that supports conservative values. In some ways, the answer [...]

by Rabbi Eric Yoffie(originally posted in The Huffington Post) America needs religious politicians. With a few notable exceptions, it doesn’t have any. Our country is not lacking in political opportunists who exploit religion for their own purposes. On both the right and left, candidates and elected officials see religion as a tool intended to attract voter support or as a prop intended to add weight to a campaign brochure. The result is that references to religion in a political campaign are more likely to generate contempt than respect. Think, for example, of Republicans who throughout their careers have been supportive [...]

by Rabbi Andrea MyersOriginally posted on Rabbi Andrea Myers’ blog and The Huffington Post After the vote on Marriage Equality onFriday, I sat dumbfounded in the gallery of the New York State Senate inAlbany. Earlier that week, when the Senate passed a resolutiondeclaring sweet corn the official state vegetable instead of taking uplegislation on marriage equality, I knew we had entered the realm of theabsurd. I had been in Albany last Monday, and had come homedisheartened by the vitriol of the debate on same-sex marriage. Somehow,though, the news about the corn was comforting. I hadn’t thought thesituation could get any [...]

by Rabbi Eric Yoffie(originally posted in The Jerusalem Post) When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we generally divide Jews into hawks and doves or right-wingers and left-wingers. But a more accurate division might be “security Jews” vs. “democracy Jews.” “Security Jews” are those whose greatest concern is Israel’s vulnerability to military attack. They emphasize Israel’s fragility as a small state in a bad neighborhood. They call for defensible borders, and for strategic depth that did not exist prior to 1967. They talk of a military presence along the Jordan River that will enable Israel to repel a possible invasion from current or future [...]