Committing Ourselves to the Actions Required for Full Inclusion
At its best, the Torah can lift up humanity, reminding us of our place in the continually unfolding story of God’s Creation of the world and our role in the hopeful journey toward freedom. At its worst, it can serve as a tool for domination, oppression, hatred, and all that is base and vile within the human soul. As a gay man, I approached this week’s Torah portion, Acharei Mot-K'doshim, with a fair amount of trepidation.
RAC-CA 2020/5780 Seder Action Insert
The Black Jews Are Tired
As fulfilling as it was to engage in Shavuot programs, a lot weighs on me. With COVID-19 continuing to ravage Black communities and racist violence all over the news, I almost feel like it’s Yom Kippur instead – the time when Jews are supposed to be most aware of their own mortality.
Ways Reform Jews Can Act Now for Racial Justice
Here are eight ways that white Reform Jews, especially, can act now in pursuit of social justice, both directly on a systemic level. These includes advocacy for policy change and for confronting racism within our own communities, and are guided by contributions and feedback from Jews of Color.
9 Ways to Celebrate Lag BaOmer from Home
Health and Hope: Lessons from My Parents, Who Survived the Holocaust
In this time of COVID-19, my mother will likely spend her upcoming 100th birthday sheltering at home with her caregiver. I asked her how this tsura (tragedy) is different from the time of Hitler.
Why I Am a Zionist for Black Lives Matter
As an Israeli citizen and white citizen of the United States, I believe that Black Lives Matter – and that no American of good conscience can simply opt out of engaging with the pervasive issue of racism in America. If we will it, it is no dream.
Sheltering in Place: Tents and Torah
My boys are making forts using all the pillows in the house. They strong-armed my husband into setting up our camping tent outside, and they sit there as the day grows hot. They are slinging blankets over couches, pulling mattresses off the frames: they are sheltering in place...
Hitler’s True Believers: How Ordinary People Became Nazis
A widely believed myth is that Adolf Hitler was a unique personal aberration in history and his Nazi movement with its reign of terror was a one and done occurrence that lacked any real foundational ideology.
Promised Land Delayed: Meet the Jewish Suffragist Who Changed History
To celebrate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States this year, Rabbi Carole Balin, Ph.D., is sharing eight chapters of an "alternative Book of Numbers” designed to tell the stories of Jewish women who combined civic engagement with Jewish values in a 40-year