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.
Honor World Refugee Day by Joining the Refugees Welcome Campaign
Throughout the month of June, faith communities across the country are joining in a Refugees Welcome Campaign in honor of World Refugee Day on June 20.
Yom HaZikaron: A Day of Pause and Reflection
Starting in the evening on Tuesday, May 10, Israelis and supporters of Israel around the world will mark Yom HaZikaron, the Day of Remembrance for Israeli fallen soldiers and victims of terror.
How to Open Our Hearts and Congregations to Those with Mental Illness
Many congregants suffering from mental illness choose not to seek support from fellow congregants or even clergy, and some leave congregations or don’t join in the first place because the feel they will never be accepted. There's an overwhelming need for safe, supportive groups where people with mental illness can reveal their stories, explore a spiritual connection to Judaism, and engage in social support with others dealing with similar situations.
Lessons of Nuremberg: Stand Up to Hate and Remember Its Victims
Yom Hashoah arrives this year on the eve of two historic anniversaries: the 80th anniversary of the coming into effect of the Nuremberg Race Laws, which served as prologue and precursor to the Holocaust, and the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, which served as the foundation for the development of contemporary international human rights and humanitarian law. We must ask ourselves two questions: What have we learned? What must we do?
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