Max Geller flew to Chicago in late October to help organize two rallies: one against Israel and one against a dead French impressionist. On October 25, Geller marched with a group of 250 people outside the Jewish National Fund’s national conference. The march featured a human-sized JNF-style blue tzedakah, or charity box bearing the anti-JNF…
Advocates for gender equality at the Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial convention hailed the denomination’s unanimous voice vote supporting transgender rights. The “Resolution on the rights of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People,” attracted three pro and no con speakers at the microphone at the gathering of thousands of Reform leaders. The groundbreaking measure covers congregations,…
(JTA) — While the 2013 Pew survey uncovered some disturbing evidence of lower levels of Jewish engagement among young people, the same survey contains several pieces of good news for Reform Jews — 5,000 of whom are gathering this week in Orlando, Florida, for the movement’s biennial conference organized by the Union for Reform Judaism. Since…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming speech at a liberal Washington think tank is provoking outrage from some progressives who say that the appearance gives a bipartisan sheen to his government’s right-wing policies. The Israeli leader’s scheduled November 10 appearance at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic left-leaning institution, is seen as an attempt…
Laurie Cardoza-Moore is responsible for one of the signal achievements in the battle against attempts to boycott Israel: a bill passed in the Tennessee state legislature condemning boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel as anti-Semitic, before any other such measure reached the capitals of other states. But search Cardoza-Moore’s name, and one of the first…
(JTA) — Do you experience feelings of peace and well-being at least once a week? Did God write the Torah? Do you eat bacon? If these questions seem a little personal, don’t fret. They’re all part of a new Pew Research Center survey on American religion released Tuesday that shows moderate declines in religious beliefs and…
A group of leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis issued a proclamation November 2 asserting that the so-called Open Orthodox movement is not legitimately Orthodox and that rabbis ordained in its seminaries are not rabbis. The proclamation by the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah of America, the ultra-Orthodox rabbis who guide the Agudath Israel of America, is the latest salvo…
This woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, met Rabbi Eric Siroka at the Reform synagogue Or Chadash, in Flemington, New Jersey, in 2000. She was 17 at the time and was looking for someone to mentor her through a Reform youth fellowship program. Siroka became her teacher, leading her in weekly evening study sessions when…
Claws were out on Monday after an Israeli cabinet minister proposed sending stray dogs and cats to another country as an alternative to government-funded efforts to sterilize them. “Use the budget to transfer stray dogs and/or cats of one gender (all the males or all the females) to a foreign nation that will agree to…
Rabbi Eric Siroka was quietly expelled from the nation’s leading association for Reform rabbis, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, this past spring. At the time, the CCAR said only that Siroka had been expelled for refusing to comply with an ethics investigation. By then, Siroka, a married father with two children, had moved to…
The 2015 New York City Marathon was be the 19th that Michigan Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein runs in his lifetime. Bernstein loves running, but while for most people it is a way to free the mind, for him, it demands very intense and constant concentration. He was born blind. “The way that it works…
