RJ Blog

Over the last year, many Americans have spoke against the voter suppression laws that have swept the nation, state by state. But there are few who can speak with more passion or heart than those who actively organized, rallied and marched during the Civil Rights Movement to fight for expanded rights, including voting rights, for all. One of these leaders is Representative John Lewis (D-GA), who, 50 years ago, put his body on the line to defeat Jim Crow laws that blocked African Americans and other citizens of color from accessing the polls and exercising their rights as Americans.

by Rabbi Jason Rosenberg Marriage equality has been in the news, pretty much non-stop, for a couple of days now. First, North Carolina passed Amendment 1, banning any kind of legal civil union, other than heterosexual marriage. Then, President Obama came out in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage, a first for a sitting U.S. President. It has been, to say the least, a busy few days in the marriage equality world. That makes this as good of a time as any for me to speak out in favor of marriage equality. It’s something I’ve done before, as have many of [...]

by Rabbi Bonnie Margulis Years ago, as an undergraduate at NYU, I was working on my senior honors thesis, “On the Ordination of Women as Rabbis.” It had been only 11 years since the first woman was ordained, but it was more than half a lifetime ago for me, and so seemed a very long time ago. It never occurred to me that I could try to go see Rabbi Sally Priesand and interview her. She was in Morristown, I was in Paramus – just an hour away, but who knew?  Today I kick myself that I was so dumb. [...]

Over a month ago, the Senate leadership struck a bipartisan deal pledging to vote on a package of 14 judicial nominees, thereby momentarily addressing the pervasive obstructionism to judicial appointments. While this deal effectively stimulated voting on judicial vacancies, it did not even begin to address the urgent need for a real commitment to filling our nation’s benches. Judicial nominations have been subject to the worst kind of politics by placing the justice system for which we pride ourselves at risk for the purpose of partisan battles.

It’s not too late to plan a Jubilee Shabbat event in your synagogue, community, or even for your home and family. This year’s Jubilee Shabbat weekend is taking place May 18-19, and it is co-sponsored by the Religious Action Center, American Jewish World Service, Tikkun, the Shalom Center and Rabbis for Human Rights-North America (RHR-NA). The weekend is just one opportunity to set aside time to pray, reflect, study, and act around issues of global inequality and poverty. Each week we set aside time to rest during Shabbat. But the Jubilee, which represents the seventh Sabbath cycle, reminds us to [...]

Last week I asked you to support Christiane Amanpour covering gender segregation, and you did not disappoint. Thousands of you made it clear how important it is to cover this issue. This week, I need your help again before all of us at IRAC head back to the Israeli Supreme Court to continue fighting for Miri Gold to be the first reform rabbi recognized by the State of Israel.

About a year ago, the United States finally killed Bin Osama Laden, the terrorist mastermind behind the September 11th attacks. It didn’t take long for torture apologists to start claiming that brutal interrogation methods had yielded the information that led to the compound where the Al Qaeda leader had been hiding. At the time, the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), said that “to the best of our knowledge … none of [the information] came as a result of harsh interrogation practices.” The debate over the value of torture as an information-gathering tool has been reawakened [...]

The candidates and pundits engaged in the 2012 presidential campaigns promised that this campaign would feature a serious and laser-focused commitment to the core issues that face America: the economy, jobs, our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So imagine my surprise as the campaigns have spent entirely too much time debating a woman’s right to privacy, a woman’s right to receive contraception as part of her healthcare plan, a couple’s right to decide if, when and how to raise a family, and yes: a woman’s right to decide if an abortion is the right decision for her without interference by [...]

The Connecticut Jewish Ledger recently profiled the Religious Action Center‘s Rabbi Lynne Landsberg, Senior Adviser on Disability Issues, in advance of her speaking engagement early next month at Congregation B’nai Israel in Bridgeport. In it, Rabbi Landsberg makes a powerful and personal case for the Jewish community’s role in fighting for the rights of people with disabilities:

Last Sunday marked the 42nd annual Earth Day, a celebration of our natural world and recognition of the important role humans play in protecting it by living within our means. This year, Earth Day also happens to fall between Passover and Shavuot, holidays that draw heavily on the power and symbolism of the earth’s gifts to us in the form of food and agriculture.  Passover marks the beginning of the harvest season and Shavuot denotes the time when the season’s earliest fruits were brought by farmers to the Temple in Jerusalem. We are blessed to live on a planet that [...]