Karla Goldman
By Karla Goldman
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News Reform Judaism is a wounded giant. A historian explains why it got so big.
Amid a seeming avalanche of Jewish organizational cutbacks, closings and furloughs, the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) announced last Wednesday, that it would be cutting its staff by 20% due to coronavirus-related stresses. As with so many basic institutions of American life, the economic disruption caused by the pandemic is highlighting existential questions about the…
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Opinion Preserve the Shards of the Shattered Glass Ceiling
Last week, 34 years after becoming the first woman ever ordained by a rabbinical seminary, Sally Priesand retired. Throughout her career, Priesand’s achievements have carried both personal and symbolic weight — and so, too, with her retirement. Since her ordination in 1972, Priesand and the more than 800 other women who have followed her into…
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Opinion Celebrating Women’s History, One Month at a Time
Each March, “Women’s History Month” is officially celebrated, offering a relatively random opportunity to focus for a short period of time on a historical experience that remains largely invisible in mainstream histories. Arbitrary as the celebration may be, those who take full advantage of a commemorative month like this often learn how central these supposedly…
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Opinion The Way We Were, The Way We Are
Their arrival was not auspicious. When 23 Jews came to New Amsterdam on an early September day in 1654, 350 years ago, two of their number were thrown into jail as security for money still owed for the group’s passage. Although those still at liberty were able to pay off the fare by auctioning their…
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Opinion Throw an Open Party for U.S. Jewry’s 350th
As communal leaders gear up to bring next year’s celebration of American Jewry’s 350th anniversary to a community or organization near you in 2004, it seems appropriate to consider the sensitivities of this big prospective birthday party. On September 9, more than 100 Jewish professionals, lay leaders and academics gathered at New York’s Center for…
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News Even Now: Daring To Make a Difference
No matter one’s politics, the seemingly inexorable trajectory of world events has engulfed us all of late. Those opposing a U.S. assault upon Iraq have felt particularly powerless. Even those supportive of military engagement can hardly feel sanguine about the unpredictable series of events that will play themselves out in upcoming weeks and months. March…
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