Denouncing Arson Threat
Yoffie and Saperstein: We are disgusted and outraged by those who have threatened to use violence and arson against Presbyterian churches to protest the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s recent steps toward divestment from Israel.
Galilee Diary: The Neighbors
Whoever saves one life in Israel [i.e., of a Jew] is as if he had saved an entire world.
– Mishnah, Sanhedrin 4:5
Whoever saves one life is as if he had saved an entire world.
Ki Teitzei: When You Go Out as a Warrior
Parashat Ki Teitzei includes a rich and varied collection of directives that serve as a partial blueprint for behaviors and norms to create the emerging covenantal culture. As Professor Adele Berlin notes, “Issues pertaining to women are prominent in this parashah. . . .
How Tikkun Olam and Pikuah Nefesh Will Help Me Prepare: A #BlogElul Post
Last week I had lunch with a rabbi friend who told me he’s in the midst of preparing four different sermons for the upcoming High Holidays.
Syrian Refugees
With more than 500,000 people displaced to neighboring countries by the violent civil war in Syria, the Jewish Coalition for Disaster Relief (JCDR) has opened a fund to provide humanitarian aid to the refugees.
20 Years After 9/11: The Power of Tiny Acts To Create a Moral Universe
Union for Reform Judaism Distributes $80,000 in Sudan Relief Funds
NEW YORK - The Union for Reform Judaism is giving $80,000 to organizations dedicated to helping the men, women, and children affected by the ongoing violence in Sudan as its first allocation of dollars donated to its Disaster Relief Fund.
Living in the Light of Goodness
When God began to create heaven and earth the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water. God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
Strange Fruit
After seeing the infamous 1930 photograph by Lawrence Beitler, which depicts the mob lynching of two young black men, a Jewish high school teacher named Abel Meeropol wrote a haunting poem titled "Strange Fruit." The poem was first published in 1936 in The New York Teacher, a union magaz