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More than two weeks have passed since election day and more than ten days have passed since it became clear that Vice President Joe Biden won a strong majority of both the popular vote and the Electoral College. Joe Biden is President-elect of the United States and should be provided with the recognition and resources that will allow for a smooth and secure transition to a new administration.

We congratulate President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris on their victory in the 2020 election. We celebrate especially the first Woman of Color elected to the Vice Presidency, even as we note the essential and immense amount of work our nation must do to address ongoing systemic racism.

Yolanda Savage-Narva, MSEd. (she/her) will join the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) as Director for Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, a new leadership position.

Global Jewish organizations express our opposition to the plan to appoint former Minister and MK Brigadier General (retired) Efi Eitam to the position of Chairperson of the Executive of Yad Vashem.

June 26, 2013, New York, NY -- On June 21, more than 100,000 residents of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and many more throughout the province of Alberta, were forced to flee their homes ahead of rising flood waters.

We hope and pray that the cease fire holds, and at the same time, the Union for Reform Judaism and Central Conference of American Rabbis deplore the massive rocket attack unleashed upon Israel and its citizens by Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the terrorist clients of the Iranian regime, which controls the Gaza Strip.

URJ President Rabbi Rick Jacobs on Charlottesville: We Condemn Neo-Nazi hate speech and call for an end to violence; but “Moral Equivalence of violence and hate “on many sides” is troubling. We commend the opening of President Trump’s statement condemning the “egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence” but are deeply troubled by the moral equivalence evident in President Trump’s statement today. 

vid Grossman, the Israeli author and activist, whose books, essays and public advocacy have inspired a generation, will receive Reform Judaism’s highest honor, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) 2017 Maurice N. Eisendrath Bearer of Light Award. The award will be presented at the 74th URJ Biennial in Boston in December 2017.

Senior leadership of the Reform Movement, the largest movement in Jewish life, sent a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in response to unnecessary and demeaning body searches imposed on female rabbinic students at the Western Wall in Jerusalem:

Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu,

We are writing to express our outrage and dismay about the humiliation of a cohort of Reform rabbinic students, all of whom are the future leadership of the Jewish people, at the entrance to the Kotel on August 23^rd, Rosh Hodesh Elul.

Two of our female rabbinic students, who are spending their first year of studies in Israel, were stopped at the entrance to the Kotel. After they passed through a metal detector (which clearly indicated that they were not posing any security threat), they were asked to lift their skirts and shirts in a demeaning way, an action that completely defied the decisions the Supreme Court reached on this matter.