How to Take Definitive Action During Gun Violence Awareness Month
Is your congregation or community ready to organize around addressing gun violence? Here's how.
This Gun Violence Awareness Month, join the Reform Movement in Action
June is Gun Violence Awareness Month, a time for heightened attention to confronting the plague of gun violence that ravages our streets, schools, and houses of worship.
What happened when we brought a 'yearbook of the fallen' to Congress
As their confirmation class project, the 10th graders at Temple Emanuel in Kensington, MD created a “yearbook of the fallen” to commemorate the high school victims of gun violence killed in 2018.
Suicide Prevention and Awareness Is Our Communal Responsibility
Elul is upon us. The sound of the shofar reminds us that this silent epidemic must be addressed. Its cries echo those left in the depths of sorrow, feeling alone, believing that those who love them most would be better off without them. Our fear of mental illness must be replaced with a resolve to educate ourselves and others.
Meet the 2016-2017 Eisendrath Legislative Assistants
The beginning of the program year is always an exciting time at the RAC, as we begin a new cycle of tikkun olam work.
Countdown to Summer: 8 Ways to Stay Connected with Your Congregation’s Youth, Teens, and Grads
While your youth may physically leave the building during the summer, the sense of community you’ve built all year long will stay with them as they venture across the globe. Here are some suggestions for how to stay connected this summer.
The External War and the Internal War
This week's Torah portion is called Ki Teitzei — meaning literally, "When you go out." It is a reference to violence and war. "When you take the field [literally, "When you go out"] against your enemies, and the Eternal your God delivers them into your power and you take some of them captive ... " (Deuteronomy 21:10).
This sentence is but a tiny portion of more than a thousand verses in the Tanach that deal with war. Our Holy Scriptures came into history in a world in which fighting was a normal and often necessary activity. The ancient communities of the Middle East were governed according to tribal custom and law, and each ethnic community was in a combative relationship with its neighbor. There was no United Nations in those days, no European Union designed to administer diverse people according to collective rules and laws. Some tribal federations such as the twelve tribes of Israel pooled their resources, but that was for protection rather than for advancing peaceful relations with the rest of the world. The harsh social-economic and political reality of the ancient world often triggered violent and deadly conflicts between communities and peoples, and it is rare that we read a comment such as is found in Judges 3:11: " ... and the land had peace for forty years."
URJ Resolution on Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism is itself an ancient phenomenon and a remarkably resilient form of hate. In its most terrible manifestation, anti-Semitism led to the Shoah and the murder of 6 million Jews. In the aftermath of this genocidal tragedy, the world said “never again.” Yet despite this pledge, we now see acts of anti-Jewish hatred on the rise.
Reform Movement Leader Statement on the Deaths of Terence Crutcher, Keith Scott and Justin Carr
Contact: Max Rosenblum or Graham Roth
202.387.2800 | news@rac.org
Rabbi Pesner on the 2020 Census: Every. Single. Name.
The Book of Numbers tells us
that God told the Children of Israel
to “take a census of the whole community,
every family according to its ancestral household,
listing every single name…”