Reform Judaism

On War and Intent
January 6, 2009

"After arriving at my office, at the moment I resumed writing this article, I was again forced to leave, this time because the building next to my office received a threat that an Israeli F-16 strike was imminent."

Jaber Wishah published this line along with a few hundred other words in the December 29th "Eyewitness" column of the Financial Times coverage of latest news in Palestinian-Israeli fighting. He wrote of his family's home being blown to bits because his next-door neighbor was related to a Hamas executive force member. Wishah, deputy director of the independent Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza City, is clearly not pleased with the incursion and devastation being unleashed upon the population he represents.

As a news junky I read many newspapers and blogs daily but I can't read more than a few paragraphs of a story about this war. Be it in Ha'aretz, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Al-Jazzera Online or the BBC, I don't care to read anything about the on going conflict over Gaza. Yet Wishah's piece spoke to me. I cut his first-person narrative out of my paper last Monday not because it seemed angry and helpless, but because while hundreds had been killed by Israel's bombings in the days prior, Wishah and his family, friends, colleagues and neighbors got warning before these locations -- legitimate or otherwise -- were destroyed by the Israeli military.

Filed Under: Israel

Siblings of People with Special Needs: Next Steps in Disability Awareness Outreach
January 6, 2009 (1 Comment)

By Rabbi Paul J. Kipnes
Our Congregation Or Ami (in Calabasas, CA), like so many Reform Jewish congregations, spends significant time and energy embracing and supporting families with children with special needs. We are proactively welcoming, because our tradition teaches us that we all were created b'tzelem Elohim, in God's image.

Taking our lead from the Union for Reform Judaism's Disability Awareness initiatives, we have come to understand that "with special needs children, there are two values being played out, simultaneously. Working with one child, Brandon Kaplan, for instance, we saw that Brandon is a kid like any other kid created in the image of God, worthy of love. But Brandon is also a special kid and there is an honor and joy to the congregation that he participates to the fullness of his abilities. So he's normal and special, but here's the secret: so is every other kid."

Filed Under: Community | Religious Life

Daily Miracles
January 6, 2009 (3 Comments)

by Marge Eiseman
Facebook is a real blessing in my life. During the past few months, I have reconnected with people from my distant past (childhood neighbors, former Whitefish Bay High School acquaintances, an old lover and more), been able to give my Seattle-based cousin late-night pep talks as he spent many nights in the hospital with his baby's difficult heart condition (stable right now, thank God!) and shared a little joy and a twinge of memory as I read a status update about from a new mom in New York who was smelling the top of her baby's head while her daughter slept on mom's chest. Even today, I put on my status line that I was going to write my next entry for the rj.org blog, but didn't have a topic, and one friend immediately sent me four prompts, and another friend said she had a writing opportunity for pay that I should explore.

It may also be a curse - as some of us are temped to post inappropriate photos, or we expect instant responses from everyone we connect with or spend hours and hours playing WordTwist or Scramble.

Filed Under: Community

Despair has no role in Middle East situation
January 5, 2009

by Aaron B. Cohen
JUF News Executive Editor
Chicagoans watching the ugly scenes unfolding in the Middle East may wonder what's driving the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Why can't the two sides just get along? Isn't despair driving the extremism?

An engine of determination not one of despair lies under the hood of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Hamas cannot have despaired of making peace with Israel; it never wanted to. From the outset it determined to wage jihad according to its Islamist credo. Destroying Israel and replacing it with a greater Islamic state of Palestine always has been its goal; terrorism always has been its tactic.

Filed Under: Israel

The Little Town Of Sderot
January 5, 2009

Sderot home is directly hit by a rocket fired from Gaza

By Paul Liptz
Paul Liptz (Pbliptz@netvision.net.il) immigrated to Israel on June 4, 1967. He was on the faculty of the Department of Middle Eastern and African History, Tel Aviv University for 35 years. He is now on the staff of the Anita Saltz Center of the World Union of Progressive Judaism and the Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem.

Sderot is a small town close to the north east border of Gaza. It's like many of Israel's peripheral areas with an undeveloped town center, monotonous buildings, lower middle class inhabitants and by and large, citizens who don't really have the money to sell their apartments and move anywhere else. However, the difference between Sderot and most other areas in Israel is that this particular town has been the object of attacks from Gaza for the last eight years.

Filed Under: Israel

Lakachat Shabbat--To take a day off
January 2, 2009

by Jane Wishner
Member of Congregation Albert, Albuquerque, NM
and member of the Union Board's Executive Committee
(Originally posted as part of Ten Minutes of Torah)
Shabbat has meant different things to me at different times in my life. And different factors influenced my observance: my parents, community, location (am I at camp or living in Albuquerque), my age, my marital status, my children and the age of my children, my work, my travel, my participation in the Jewish community, and the combination of difficult choices I've had to make at every stage of my life about what I do and how I spend my time. And, for me, as a woman and a mother attempting to balance family, work and community, Shabbat observance has been shaped by the self- imposed obligations regarding what it is I need to do to sustain all three of them, often leaving out what I need to do to sustain myself.

Filed Under: Shabbat

On Gaza, Sense and Centrism
January 1, 2009 (18 Comments)

By Rabbi Eric Yoffie
First published in The Forward
Wars sicken me, even wars that I support. I support Israel's offensive in Gaza, but watching it on TV -- the images of bombed-out buildings, crying women and, inevitably, the bodies of innocent bystanders -- is a painful experience.

I suspect that most American Jews feel the same discomfort that I feel. They support the military offensive too, but they are well aware of the risks that it entails, and they expect Israel to be both politically wise and morally sensitive in how it fights. It is especially important to us that Israel do everything humanly possible to avoid the death of innocents and to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. There is much evidence that Israel has worked hard to limit the carnage, and the credibility of Israel's leaders in providing assurances on these points is an important factor in assuring the continued support of American Jews -- and, indeed, of all Americans -- for the Gaza campaign.

Filed Under: By Rabbi Eric Yoffie | Ethics | Israel

Control, God and the University of Miami
December 31, 2008 (1 Comment)

by dcc
There was a very interesting piece in the New York Times Science section this week about religion. A researcher from the University of Miami found that true believers have better self-control. In keeping with the findings of this study, I will not re-write the article but only give you a taste; I am controlling my bombastic desire to be bearer of news and information.

[The researcher's] interest arose from a desire to understand why religion evolved and why it seems to help so many people. Researchers around the world have repeatedly found that devoutly religious people tend to do better in school, live longer, have more satisfying marriages and be generally happier.

Filed Under: Religious Life

What Kind of Jew am I?
December 31, 2008 (4 Comments)

by Chaim
I have been struggling lately about where I fit in the Jewish world and thought the RJ Blog would be a good place to discuss this. I think the reason I have been struggling is because I seem to sort of float between Orthodox and Reform in my religious practice and understanding of Torah. I basically believe the Torah was given to Moses at Sinai by G-d, but not dictated 'word for word'. But rather the ideas and methods in which to connect to G-d were given to (or discovered by) Moses, passed down through the generations, and eventually written down as the Torah we know today. I believe the Torah to be sort of a 'mystical code' of sorts written in simple language to convey deeper metaphysical ideas and concepts.

Filed Under: Religious Life