As the jewish population in the area east of Los Angeles has dwindled — and as the Conservative congregation has aged — Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak has reached out to the Spanish-speaking community in the area.
All sermons, whether Reform, Conservative or Orthodox, are there to promote something \”good.\” But how do they get there?
Stephen Lachter didn\’t know what to expect when a friend dragged him to a men\’s club meeting at his Conservative synagogue five years ago.
\”My father was in a men\’s club, and to me, it was guys sitting around playing pinochle and volunteer ushering,\” he admitted.
Lachter was surprised to see \”interesting people having serious discussions,\” and he \”fell into a session on kiruv,\” or outreach, to intermarried families. \”I said to myself, this is something shuls need to be talking about.\”
At 81, frail of body but sharp-tongued and wise, Rabbi Schulweis has made it his mission to preach the gospel of conversion to the Jews. That is we, as individuals and as a people, must seek and embrace converts. Doing so will not only improve Jewish life but improve our own lives as Jews.
Arnold Eisen is a distinguished scholar of modern Jewish thought and an insightful student of the American Jewish community. His work, \”The Jew Within,\” written jointly with Steven Cohen, explores the identity of marginally affiliated contemporary Jews and illustrates the crisis that institutional liberal Judaism has in maintaining the allegiance of a new generation of American Jews.
What I Like About Jew is more irreverent than unorthodox, which is typical of artists immersed in what critics call the bourgeoning \”hipster Heeb\” movement. Like Jewcy T-shirts and the \”Jewsploitation\” flick, \”The Hebrew Hammer,\” their work sets out to replace images of the neurotic nebbish with an new persona: the cocky, hard-ass Jew.
\”The primary purpose is to serve the needs of the Orthodox population,\” says Rabbi Ilan Haber, the program\’s national director, who works out of Hillel headquarters in Washington. \”It\’s not an outreach program, it\’s an in-reach to Orthodox students.\”
Attending the North American Association of Jewish High Schools\’ (NAAJHS) leadership conference last year awakened me to the great possibilities of Jewish pluralism. NAAJHS was founded as a forum for Jewish community high schools to exchange ideas and work toward the betterment of Jewish education.
\”We\’re so busy fighting over the form of where women sit in shul that I think we\’ve lost the substance. There was a time that women were the pillars of the Orthodox community,\” Luchins said. \”We\’ve lost on that issue, big.\”
How should Conservative Judaism cope with dwindling membership, growing intermarriage rates and society\’s increasing religious and political polarity, while remaining true to its base in halachah (Jewish law)?
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