The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate
At almost 750 pages long, it’s is a very big book, one that contains 66 essays and personal reflections. The length isn’t a surprise, actually, when you realize that the scope of the book spans four decades of women in the rabbinate: 40 years, the amount of time it took our Israelite ancestors to reach the Promised Land.
Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
In Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a lively look at the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, co-authors Shana Knizhnik, a law student, and Irin Carmon, a reporter for MSNBC, mix chatty stories, photographs, charts, letters, and cartoons with legal decisions to illustrate the illustrious career of the first Jewish woman Supreme Court justice.
The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel
In the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which Israel came close to losing, a traumatized Israeli public demanded to know how Israel’s Mossad failed to detect that war was imminent, given a massive buildup of Egyptian forces along the Suez Canal and Syrian troops on the Golan Heights.
The Hue and Cry at Our House: A Year Remembered
A prism on a kitchen windowsill performs the miracle of fracturing sunlight into the complete spectrum, throwing rainbows on mundane surfaces, elevating them to something celestial and rare. Benjamin Taylor, in his compact and precise memoir, The Hue and Cry at Our House: A Year Remembered (Penguin, 2017), performs the same miracle. His last year of childhood in Forth Worth, TX, explodes into multicolored fragments, illuminating intersecting themes from the Kennedy assassination to Taylor’s homosexuality and eventual diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome.
The Netanyahu Years
On November 21, 2016, Benjamin Netanyahu surpassed David Ben Gurion’s record of longest continuous service as prime minister of Israel. Though Netanyahu’s years in power have been marked by scandal and political intrigue, his popularity with the Israeli electorate over the past seven years has grown, allowing him to do practically anything he wants.
The Shoah Through Muslim Eyes
A Pakistan-born Muslim woman with a Ph.D. from a South African university who directs the Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education Center at Manhattan College, a New York City Catholic school, has written a pioneering and courageous book about the Shoah (Holocaust).
URJ Names Ruben Arquilevich Vice President of URJ Camps, NFTY, and Immersive Experiences
Reform Movement Leaders Reaffirm Commitment to Racial Justice, Condemn Movement for Black Lives Platform Language on Israel
In response to the release of the Movement for Black Lives Policy Platform, Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, issued the following statement on behalf of the Union for Reform Judaism, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, ARZA: The Association of Reform Zionists of America, the American Conference of Cantors, Men of Reform Judaism, and the North American Federation of Temple Youth. "We reject wholeheartedly the notion that effective anti-racism work can only be done by denouncing and excoriating Israel."
URJ President To Israel: Protect The Village Of Susya
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), sent the following letter today in response to reports of Israel's plans for the destruction of the Palestinian village of Susya:
Dear Ambassador Dermer:
I am writing on behalf of the Union for Reform Judaism with concern about and opposition to reports of plans for the destruction of the Palestinian village of Susya.
Reform Movement Leader on UNESCO's Hebron Resolution
Rabbi Rick Jacobs: It’s hard to fathom how UNESCO can, once again, vote to delegitimize what is demonstrated Jewish history at an ancient holy site. The place where Judaism’s patriarchs and matriarchs rest must not become a political pawn.