Rabbi Philip Graubart is director of the Advanced Institute for Judaic Studies at the San Diego Jewish Academy.
Philip Graubart
By Philip Graubart
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Community What Our Shul’s Monster Menorah Taught Me About Loss And Love
Exactly 20 Hanukkahs ago, I took a deep breath and descended a winding staircase to the synagogue basement. Awaiting me, as a lion waits for its prey, was the wicked monster, my name for my New England shul’s Hanukkah menorah. Not to put too fine a point on it — I hated the thing. Not…
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Community The Answer To Keeping Kids On Birthright? Honesty
This past spring I accompanied my school’s graduating seniors on their trip to Israel. We arrived a few days before the U.S. opened its embassy in Jerusalem and the violent protests in Gaza. “I guess we didn’t pick a great time to come,” one of the students told me. I answered that it’s always and…
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Community ‘Letters To My Palestinian Neighbor’ Is Not The Book We Need Right Now
Dear Yossi, You and I worked together very briefly at the Shalom Hartman Institute. We only interacted a few times, so I’m not sure you remember me. But, unlike your imaginary interlocutor in your book “Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor,” you do actually exist and there’s at least a slight chance that you’ll read and…
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Community I’m Tired Of Pep Rally Judaism
I recently chaperoned the senior class of my Jewish high school on their heritage trip to Poland and Israel. At virtually every stop along the route in Poland, which included the Maidanek and Aushwitz concentration camps along with the Schindler factory, the kids wanted to sing Am Yisrael Chai, “The people of Israel lives.” I,…
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Community Why Are Conservative Jews Ignoring Our Own Intermarriage Rate?
Most non-profits try to avoid contested elections and just push through a nominating committee report. But sometimes there’s an issue that can’t be shoved aside, a philosophical dispute with the potential to clarify the institution’s mission and meaning. That seems to be the case this year at my professional association, the Rabbinical Assembly — the…
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Community Should Teachers Be Expected To Take Bullets For Their Students?
The day after the Parkland massacre, one of my high school students asked me if I would take a bullet for him. We’d been discussing the shooting — I offered a freewheeling, no judging, no holds barred discussion — and someone brought up the excruciating heroics of Scott Beigel and Aaron Feis, a teacher and…
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Community What Is The Debate Over Intermarriage Really About?
About twenty five years ago, I attended my sister-in-law’s marriage to a non-Jew. In other words, I broke a rule of the Rabbinical Assembly, the governing body of Conservative Judaism, thus risking expulsion from the group and professional suicide. A few nights ago, I asked my wife, “Did I know back then that I was…
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Community Jews Should Have Taught Our Children How To Intermarry
Almost thirty years ago, my father invited me to attend a round table discussion on intermarriage. He was a leader in the local Jewish community, a vice president of an important Jewish organization. I was a rabbinical student, with clear instructions – sit in the corner; shut up. The various machers went around the room…
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