How We Can Include Everyone in the Days of Awe
As congregational leaders, our task is not to get people nominally in the doors of our sanctuary but to help them through the gates of repentance.
Rabbi Rick Jacobs Pays His Respects to President Shimon Peres
May President Peres's memory continue to be for a blessing for the State of Israel, for the entire Jewish people, and, indeed, for the whole world.
Where is the Conscience of the World?
As I prepare to welcome in the Jewish New Year on Sunday night, I am plagued by the plight of the Syrian people. I am deeply concerned by the silence of the world.
Reflections from the 71st United Nations General Assembly
September has been a busy month for me as one of the URJ’s representatives to the United Nations as part of the Department of Public Information/Non-Governmental Organizations (DPI/NGO), program.
Rounding Up of Some of the Best High Holiday Videos of the Year
We love when congregations make hilarious videos like these, and we wanted to put them in one place to help you get in the chag spirit.
Communal Aid: How to Ensure No One Falls Through the Cracks
When we made aliyah in 1990, arriving at Shorashim, the community was a moshav sheetufi, a commune of 30 families. The economy was similar to a kibbutz – all salaries, whether from communal businesses or from work “outside,” went to the common bank account; each family received a house to live in and a monthly allowance based on family size. But not anymore.
Red and Blue and White: Being an American and a Jew
I know from conversations I have had with Israelis, they find it difficult, if not impossible, to understand how Jews can feel so at home, so safe, so self-assured in the United States. For so many of our co-religionists—those who were forced to flee from oppressive regimes in the former Soviet Union, or Ethiopia, or those whose parents and grandparents fled from or grew up in the ashes of state-sanctioned hatred—they cannot possibly understand how we can live so calmly and unafraid in this nation. They can’t quite understand what it means to be an American and a Jew.
My Son May Be Sheltered Now, But That Won’t Last Forever
For better or for worse, my son doesn’t yet know how scary this world can be – and I’m not eager to break it to him.