October 19, 2008
Dear Rabbi:
David Deutsch emails:
So my first thought about your shul situation was an irate blog post. Then I thought "Will that actually help?" and I decided instead to write a letter to your rabbi to try and convince him to change his mind. Then I spoke about it to the missus, and when she got irate, I got irate again, and I thought "Why not write both?" Then I realized thought, that if this little episode teaches us anything, it's that we can't make any promises of online anonymity. So I've written this letter for your rabbi, which you can forward to him. I find your situation personally frustrating, and–without knowing your rabbi or your relationship to him–I hope that the awesome power of my didactic writing can't help but convince him to reconsider.
Of course, if you think it would be a bad idea, you know him better than me, so I'll trust your judgment (and how often do you hear that?).
Filed under Personal, Rabbis by Levi Ben Avraham
September 4, 2008
Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles Names Rabbi Sharon Brous Recipient of Inaugural Inspired Leadership Award
LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles (The Foundation) today announced it has selected Rabbi Sharon Brous as the recipient of its first Inspired Leadership Award. The Foundation created the biennial award program to recognize an outstanding professional leader whose vision can help transform the Los Angeles Jewish community. It provides a $100,000 donor advised fund for Brous to distribute to programs and projects of local Jewish organizations that support her vision.
Filed under Rabbis by Levi Ben Avraham
August 22, 2008
Rabbi Gives Invocation For Democrats
Washington — Presidential historians and convention observers believe this year’s Democratic convention will be the first time that a rabbi gives an invocation before the presidential nominee’s acceptance speech since the advent of modern American political conventions nearly a century ago.
Filed under Rabbis by Levi Ben Avraham
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Rabbi Judah Kogen was determined not to be a rabbi.
Rabbi Kogen, the new spiritual leader of Congregation B'nai Jeshurun in West Brighton, brings with him to Staten Island a wealth of experience in leading congregations of every size, in developing high-level educational programs for both adults and youth, and in helping Conservative Jews understand what it really means to be a Conservative Jew.
Read more on Staten Island's Bnai Jeshurun Gets A New Rabbi…
Filed under Rabbis by Levi Ben Avraham
August 17, 2008
Private Tutoring For The Elite
From the New York Times news service:
Financial crises occur. Personal trainers need their access. The All-Star Game can run late.
“I had some, uh, mixed feelings, Seth, about your missing our last appointment,” said Rabbi Stuart Shiff, sitting one morning the other week across the table in a midtown Manhattan office from one of his private students, Seth Horowitz, executive vice-president of sporting goods company Modell’s.
Filed under Rabbis by Levi Ben Avraham
DENVER, Aug 16, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, will deliver the invocation at the Democratic National Convention Thursday, August 28, at Denver's INVESCO Field, the night that Sen. Barack Obama is scheduled to accept the Democratic nomination.
"I am deeply honored to have been invited to offer a religious voice at this celebration of American democracy; the opportunity to do so at an evening of such historic significance to our nation is especially meaningful," Saperstein said.
At the Conventions, as at so many other public events, the invocation serves as an opportunity for religious leaders to raise up in a non-partisan manner the moral challenges facing the country and to pray that the country's leaders have the wisdom and courage to resolve them.
"We are honored that a representative of the Reform Movement was selected to give the invocation the night the first African-American accepts the nomination to the highest office in our land," said Peter Weidhorn, chairman of the Union for Reform Judaism. "We hope that leaders of our Movement, the largest segment of American Jewry, will likewise be among those religious voices invited to be heard at the Republican Convention."
An array of prominent religious leaders, including the heads of several Jewish, Christian and Muslim denominations and national organizations, are participating in both conventions. Saperstein commended both parties for welcoming religious leaders to the conventions. The DNC and Sen. Obama had significantly expanded both outreach to the faith communities and the visibility of the faith communities at the convention, including the decision to begin the Democratic convention with a public interfaith service of Christians, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists.
Saperstein, who is a leader in a number of interfaith and public interest coalitions, has worked with a broad array of leaders from both parties in forging coalitions to address pressing issues such as poverty, health care, hunger, the environment, Middle East Peace and Israel's security. He has led the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism for 34 years, providing a voice for Reform Judaism in Washington. He currently co-chairs the Coalition to Preserve Religious Liberty, comprised of over 40 national religious denominations, educational and religious freedom organizations, and serves on the boards of numerous national organizations including the NAACP and People For the American Way. In 1999, Rabbi Saperstein was elected as the first Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom created by a unanimous vote of Congress.
An attorney, Rabbi Saperstein teaches seminars in both First Amendment Church-State Law and in Jewish Law at Georgetown University Law School.
The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism not only advocates on a broad range of social justice issues but provides extensive legislative and programmatic materials used by synagogues, federations and Jewish community relations councils nationwide, and coordinates social action education programs that train nearly 3,000 Jewish adults, youth, rabbinic and lay leaders each year.
For more information on the work of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, see www.rac.org.
Read more on Rabbi David Saperstein To Give Invocation At Democratic Convention…
Filed under Rabbis by Levi Ben Avraham
August 15, 2008
Is God A Hermaphrodite?
The journal of Reform rabbis published an article this week proclaiming that if the four-letter Hebrew name of God were spelled backward and pronounced, it would sound like the Hebrew words for "he" and "she."
Held by Jewish tradition to be unpronounceable, the Tetragrammaton is often replaced by "Adonai" or "Lord" when Jews read scripture. Christians often pronounce it as Yahweh or Jehovah.
Filed under Rabbis, Reform by Levi Ben Avraham
August 3, 2008
Rabbi Compares Life To Football
Moscow, August 1, Interfax – Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar urges believers to take footballers for a model.
Every man should live like "in a football field, to give all his energies and abilities," he writes in his article published by the Lechaim magazine in August.
Filed under Rabbis by Levi Ben Avraham
From the Philadelphia Inquirer:
Dennis Shulman is a blind psychologist who's also an ordained rabbi. Political experts say the 58-year-old Democrat's quest to unseat Rep. Scott Garrett is a long shot. "The Republican administration has simply made so many mistakes that people have given up on seeing Republican leadership as dealing with the issues facing the country," said Ingrid Reed, director of the New Jersey Project at Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute of Politics.
The 5th District, a narrow strip running along the state's northern border, covers traditionally conservative areas that compliment Garrett's own conservative views. Garrett, as an incumbent, also has the potential to raise cash fast.
So far, Shulman hasn't lagged too badly in the money race: Shulman had $258,381 on hand, to Garrett's $649,003, as of June 30. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also included Shulman in an early July round of radio advertisements and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer has campaigned for Shulman.
Shulman argues that Garrett is so conservative that even 5th District residents want a change. The Alexandria, Va.-based American Conservative Union lists Garrett as one of the most conservative congressmen in the Northeast.
Shulman has a long list of differences with Garrett. Shulman, for example, is against President Bush and Republican presidential candidate John McCain's proposal to allow more offshore oil drilling. Garrett thinks the proposal has some merit.
Filed under Rabbis by Levi Ben Avraham
July 29, 2008
First Woman Ordained In Israel
Rabbi Naamah Kelman was the first woman to be ordained as a rabbi in Israel. She is associate dean at the Hebrew Union College, Jerusalem, and seeks a progressive direction for Judaism and a greater understanding of pluralism. She is involved with Mazorim Spiritual Care/Israeli Chaplaincy, and Rabbis for Human Rights. She spoke with Swati Chopra:
Filed under Rabbis by Levi Ben Avraham