The High Holidays bring a special dilemma to American congregations. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur attract more Jews to synagogue — and more attention to American Jews in general — than at any other time of year.
As we stand at the dawn of the 21st century, a perhaps even more fundamental issue divides the American body politic. From stem cells, abortion and human cloning to the Schiavo case and physician-assisted suicides, the question of life has become this generation\’s great ideological battle ground.
I attended the \”Liberation!\” exhibit at the Museum of Tolerance — photos and objects and footage from the moments in the spring of 1945 when the doors of the Nazi concentration camps were thrown open to the world, and when those few remaining within were set free.
\”The highest priority for a teen is the avoidance of humiliation at all costs,\” said Levine. \”Cool is an obsession. It prevents children from developing as individuals because they are so concerned about coolness.\”\n\n
The following is an excerpt from the speech President Bush gave on Sept. 14 at the national dinner celebrating 350 years of Jewish life in America at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.
As it is for most of America, the Iraq war is an abstraction to many American Jews. We don\’t know by name anyone in uniform on the ground. And so, like most of America, it is hard for us to become motivated to take action. After all, what do we personally have at stake?
Jews aren\’t among those being killed, raped and displaced in the Darfur region of Sudan, but the situation there is nonetheless a Jewish disaster.
The slogan, \”never again,\” the redeeming lesson of the Holocaust, is turning into a farce in the African nation, as world leaders continue to find a dazzling array of excuses for inaction, including the obvious one: \”It\’s a complicated situation,\” as cases of genocide always are.
