Fresh Updates from RAC

This post is part of a weekly feature on RACblog. Check in at the end of the week for a roundup of stories in which the RAC has been featured!

Last night, the Boy Scouts of America voted to end their ban on gay scouts, while maintaining their restriction on gay scout leaders. This partial victory was welcomed with pride across the Reform Movement. In fact, the RAC coordinated a clergy letter urging the BSA to accept gay scouts, which was signed by over 500 clergy! That story was covered widely in the Jewish press, particularly by outlets including JTA, The Times of Israel, and The Jewish Journal of Greater L.A.

This past week, a group of rabbis also came to D.C. to speak with their Senators and advocate for comprehensive immigration reform. Their words were powerful, and they represent only a small sample of the many rabbis taking a stand on this issue across the country. Just this week, op-eds written by rabbis on this very issue were published in local secular and Jewish press. Check out Rabbi Seth Limmer’s op ed in the New York Jewish Week.

This post is part of a weekly feature on RACblog. Check in at the end of the week for a roundup of stories in which the RAC has been featured!

Welcome to this week’s edition of “Featuring the RAC,” written from the offices of the Jerusalem Post’s 26^th most powerful Jew in the world! In all seriousness, we were immensely proud to see Rabbi Saperstein on JPost’s list, and equally proud of our friend Anat Hoffman who scored the #5 spot.

This week, Rabbi Saperstein also joined the Interfaith Alliance, National Council of Jewish Women, and other religious organizations calling for the inclusion of a ban on religious profiling in the immigration reform bill. Here at the RAC we’ve been hard at work advocating for comprehensive immigration reform more broadly, as well.

Rabbi Saperstein also voiced concern this week over the status of the Jewish population in Hungary by signing a letter with several other leaders of American Jewish organizations. The letter, addressed to Secretary of State John Kerry and Ambassador Michael Kozak, read in part: “Given the growth of hatred against Jews and other minorities (particularly the Roma) in Hungary, we urge you to keep the issue of intolerance and discrimination squarely on the US-Hungarian bilateral agenda…We also encourage you to raise the matter personally in your direct dealings with Hungarian officials.”

At the beginning of 2012 I wrote on RACblog: “As we move into the 2012 election year, the war on women has become more extreme and effective.” Not only did this prove to be true (it’s hard to forget the offensive rhetoric spewed by so many candidates across the country in 2012 elections), but states have continued to pass laws since then, which have stripped women of their right to choose when, how and if to have a family, or have created socioeconomically-based barriers that restrict access to reproductive health services.

That’s why Morgan Meneses-Sheets’s piece in Truthout (the program manager for Reproductive Health Technologies Project – a strong partner with the RAC on our reproductive justice initiatives) really struck a chord with me.

Before you read on, keep in mind how wholly our reproductive rights advocacy efforts are informed by our Jewish values. While it often feels as though the Religious Right has a monopoly on the faith-based perspective on reproductive rights, this doesn’t need to be the case. In the Mishnah we read, “If a woman’s labor becomes life threatening, the one to be born is dismembered in her abdomen…for her life comes before the life of the fetus.” From this and other Talmudic passages we learn that, while all life is sacred, the life of a mother has more value than the life of an unborn fetus. Additionally, when considering the health of the mother, we consider her physical, spiritual and emotional health – her body and her nefesh (soul). Abortion is a deeply personal issue, and the decision of when life begins is often a religious one.

Check out Morgan’s piece here, or read it below:

Read more…

This post is part of a weekly feature on RACblog. Check in at the end of the week for a roundup of stories in which the RAC has been featured!

This week, Rabbi Saperstein was invited by Vice President Biden for a private meeting lasting 2 and a half hours with 20 other faith leaders to discuss next steps in the gun violence prevention debate. Reporting out from their conversation, Rabbi Saperstein recognized that the Administration is still very much committed to passing gun violence prevention legislation, but “The conversation presumed the vote would happen first on immigration…That seemed to be the back-and-forth on both sides – that immigration was a key priority right now. When that vote took place, it would be an opportunity to refocus on this.”

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This article was originally published on RJ.org.

Still not clear on the details of the ongoing dispute regarding women’s prayer at the Western Wall in Israel? Been following along so closely that you want to know even more about it? Last week, Rabbi Jacqueline Koch Ellenson, director of the Women’s Rabbinic Network, was interviewed by Timothy Michael Law, founder, publisher, and editor-in-chief of The Marginalia Review of Books. The Women’s Rabbinic Network is the international support and advocacy organization for women in the Reform rabbinate.

Read more…

Are you on your synagogue’s social action committee?

Do you want to:

• Learn more about the Reform Movement’s newest partnerships, campaigns and initiatives?
• Discover new ways to bring exciting social action programs to your congregation?
• Get valuable skills training?

Participate in our Social Action Committee Webinar

Tuesday May 7

3:00-4:00 PM ET

Register today at rac.org/SAWebinar

For more information email Isaac Nuell (inuell@rac.org).

Happy Earth Day! While we at the RAC are working to pass legislation that helps mitigate the effects of climate change, there are champions for environmental stewardship working day-in and day-out at the congregational and community level to make change.

Paul Kaufman is a perfect example of someone who has made it his mission to protect our environment through community organizing. Kaufman has been a member of his synagogue, Temple Emeth in Teaneck, NJ, for 45 years. In that time, he has led his community as they have encouraged a focus on the environment through their 30-year-old environmental committee (that he founded “before it was mainstream”).

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Welcome to Consultation on Conscience 2013! We are thrilled to welcome lay leaders and clergy from across North America for three days of public policy workshops, Jewish learning and social justice.

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