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News As Reform Jews Gather, Some Good News in the Numbers
(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…
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Breaking News Reform Passes Groundbreaking Transgender Resolution by Acclamation
Temples and synagogues affiliated with the nation’s largest Jewish movement should take specific steps to embrace transgender people, a U.S. conference of Reform Jews urged on Thursday in approving a groundbreaking resolution. In a resounding voice vote, Reform Judaism embraced some of the most far-reaching policies for transgender men and women seen among any of…
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Breaking News Charles Bronfman Urges Reform To Take Birthright Israel Back From Chabad
Birthright Israel co-founder Charles Bronfman called on the Reform movement to displace Chabad as the largest provider of Birthright trips to Israel. Speaking to a crowd of thousands Wednesday night at the biennial conference of the Union for Reform Judaism, Bronfman noted that 75 percent of participants on Birthright — which provides free, 10-day trips…
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Breaking News Reform Movement Poised for Groundbreaking Recognition of Transgender Rights
The Reform movement, the largest in American Judaism, is set to pass what is being called the most extensive resolution on transgender rights of any major religious organization. The “Resolution on the Rights of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People” is set to be considered and voted upon Thursday at the Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial…
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Breaking News Reform Biennial Features Joe Biden and Michael Douglas
Vice President Joe Biden and Academy Award-winning actor Michael Douglas are scheduled to speak at the Reform movement’s biennial in Orlando, Florida. Biden will address the gathering of Reform Jewish leaders on Saturday, the Union for Reform Judaism announced in a news release Monday. Douglas, the winner of the 2015 Genesis Prize, known as the…
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News How Rabbi Eric Siroka Made Me Lose My Jewish Identity
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…
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News When Reform Leaders Downplay Charges of Rabbis Behaving Badly
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…
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Opinion As Reconstructionists Accept Rabbis With Non-Jewish Partners, Will Reform Jews Follow Suit?
Moved either by a brave spirit or by the notion that widespread intermarriage in the Jewish faith demands this change, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College recently announced that it is revoking its “Non-Jewish Partner” policy, which denied admission to students married to, or in a committed relationship with, a non-Jew. This decision is likely to have…
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