For many years, the Allen School was the worst in the Dayton, Ohio, system. Located in the dilapidated inner city, the dropout rate was astronomical.
The Los Angeles Ulpan is one of the nation\’s oldest Israel trips geared to teenagers.
There I was standing in front of a tiny prison cell in the maximum security prison on Robben Island, nestled quietly in the harbor of Cape Town, South Africa. I stood in silence, staring at the cell with its three rough wool blankets, its one lonely wooden stool and the small, hard metal bed that stood abandoned in the corner.
My story is not really unique. The Jewish community is made up of many families with non-Jewish partners and relatives who support and nurture Judaism in their homes for the sake of their children.
The Reform rabbis\’ recent resolution on same-gender officiation affirms two mutually contradictory actions: It supports any Reform rabbi who wishes to perform a same-sex ritual, including, though not so specified, marriage; and it supports any Reform rabbi who refuses to perform same-sex rituals.In an important way, there is nothing new in this resolution. A Reform rabbi could always have performed a same-sex commitment service. Nothing in Reform Judaism would have prevented Reform rabbis from doing so 10, 20, or 50 years ago, because there are no religious standards in Reform Judaism (this is not criticism, it is description). Reform rabbis can do anything they want ritually. So a Reform Jew can celebrate Shabbat on Tuesday. Indeed, for decades many Reform synagogues held Shabbat services on Sundays.
So what are you worth? Does it depend on how the market did today?
On a warm early summer afternoon in Meron, a hilltop village in the Galilee in northern Israel, the sun dangles like a big white bulb.
A rabbi in a small community in pre-Holocaust Europe experienced rabbinic burn-out. No matter what he did, no one seemed to appreciate it.
When I got the call from Montreal, fortunately I was sitting down. The woman said her name was Bryna Wasserman, and she wanted to produce a musical based on the film I had made about Harry Houdini in 1976.
Dear Mom, I write to you again this Mother\’s Day. But this time, a little wiser and more grateful for you; more grateful because now I have two children of my own.
