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.
The White House Hosts Its Annual Hanukkah Party with a Big Reform Presence
The White House hosted its annual Hanukkah party last night, inviting representatives from the American Jewish community to join the first family in celebrating the Festival of Lights.
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.
Promoting International Religious Freedom in the New Year
During this holiday season, which highlights the diversity of religious traditions that are celebrated in communities throughout the world, we are moved to think about those who do not the same freedom to celebrate as we do in the United States.
The Politics of Prejudice and the Syrian Refugee Question
The many thousands of Syrian refugees seeking a safe haven on our shores are being twice victimized – first by the bloody civil war that caused them to flee their homeland, and a second time by the prejudice and fear making us indifferent to their suffering and squeezing their chance of asylum to
A Conversation with Award-Winning D’var Torah Writer Anna Hirsh
Anna, a sophomore from Boulder, CO, wrote in her winning d'var, “The refugee crisis in Europe and the Middle East is the biggest migration crisis since World War II – when we, the Jewish people, were the strangers.” We spoke with her to learn how her perspectives on this topic have developed since she wrote her d’var three months ago.
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