Rabbi Rick Jacobs is President of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the largest, most diverse movement in Jewish life, with 900 congregations and 2 million people.
Rick Jacobs
By Rick Jacobs
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Opinion It’s not a merger! Reform and Conservative are just collaborating
As the holiday of Shavuot approaches, we prepare to greet the giving of the Torah with all-night study in a Tikkun Leil Shavuot. The classical mode of Torah study is in chavruta, a pair or small group of learners who explore texts in partnership. It is in this spirit of chavruta that we, leaders of…
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Opinion It’s Time To Stop Lecturing And Start Listening To Young Jews
When I travel, I hear many people my age ask, “Why don’t our young people join synagogues? Or give to their federations? Why don’t they stand up for Israel? Why don’t they go to Hillel?” In short, they’re asking, why can’t they be more like us? Indeed, the war between the boomers and the millennials…
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Community Rabbi Rick Jacobs: Israel Turning Away BDS Supporter Ariel Gold Was ‘Disgraceful’
Dear Elijah, I enjoyed sitting and speaking with you and your fellow URJ Eisner Camp Machon campers just a few days ago. As you note in your well-argued essay, we talked seriously and thoughtfully about exactly the issues you raise. In our conversation we discussed a variety of critical issues, including having a frank conversation…
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Opinion URJ’s Hopes And Concerns About Trump’s Jerusalem Decision
This d’var Torah for Parashah Vayeishev was presented by Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, before the 74th Union for Reform Judaism Biennial convention on Saturday, December 9. The wide-ranging topics addressed include the significant progress on strengthening Reform Judaism in Israel; deepening commitments to and investments in Israel; how to…
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Opinion How To Talk Politics at Your Family Seder Without Killing Each Other
An estimated 70% of American Jews participate in a Passover Seder — in any Jewish religious observance. This year, as we recount the story of the Exodus and symbolically taste the bitterness of slavery, we also must ask what, in 2016, makes this Passover different? At my Seder table this year, as we remember how…
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Opinion Intermarriage Is Fact of Jewish Life — Not Disease
(JTA) — All in favor of a strong Jewish future say “aye.” On that core question, there is resounding unanimity, but there have been some unnecessarily polarizing articles in the Jewish press suggesting that we have to select either endogamy or outreach. Nonsense! Such binary thinking reduces a multi-dimensional and complex reality to a false…
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Opinion Unholy Alliance of Orthodox Judaism and Political Power Harms Israeli Democracy
Last June, Forward editor Jane Eisner participated in a private roundtable discussion at the Israeli Presidential Conference in Jerusalem about Israel’s Jewish identity. What came out of the talks was the sense that Jews in Israel and in the Diaspora face a similar challenge — how to be a modern people in a modern world…
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Opinion Time for Israel To Change Stance Toward Jewish Women
Is Judaism the problem or the solution to women’s equality? Try telling agunot, women who are chained to their husbands unable to obtain a get, a religious divorce, that they are equal to men. Overarching Jewish values like b’tzelem Elohim — that all people are created in the image of God — may teach equality,…
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