More in ‘Reform Judaism’

This was in the morning round-up, but it seems like big enough news to highlight: The Central Conference of American Rabbis, which represents thousands of Reform Jewish clergy, two years ago convened a task force to study the question of intermarriage, and that group has now proposed moving away from discouraging Jews from marrying non-Jews ...

As Apartheid Week swept campuses across America this past week, a group of 70 Columbia University and Hebrew Union College students gathered Monday night to hear about a different topic: Reform Judaism in Israel. Dr. David Ellenson, HUC President, at an event sponsored by the Columbia Current, predicted that Reform Judaism would be able ...

Hadeish Yameinu by David Gelernter

David Gelernter, a prominent victim of the Unabomber, is a Yale computer science professor who is also fluent in the history and practice of Judaism. An observant Jew, Gelernter just published Judaism: A Way of Being (Yale University Press). Partly an exploration of the religion’s core themes and partly a defense ...

• The Union for Reform Judaism has passed its first resolution calling for equal treatment of Israeli Arabs in the Jewish state. [JTA]
• Entertainment Weekly asked Matisyahu, whose song “One Day” is being used to advertise the 2010 Winter Olympics: “So, how did a Jewish reggae guy end up as the official soundtrack to lugeing, ...

A Jewish newspaper in Houston interviewed two rabbis—Samuel Karff, who’s Reform, and Yossi Grossman, who works for an Orthodox-affiliated organization—for the first article in a four-part series about Jewish perspectives on health care reform. While both rabbis drew their interpretations from the Torah and Talmud, Karff came to the more politically liberal conclusion, arguing that ...

• Since February’s Gaza incursion, Hamas has shifted its focus from actual armed struggle toward a public-relations and educational campaign aimed at cultivating a “culture of resistance.” [NYT]
• While acknowledging “real strategic issues at stake,” Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union of Reform Judaism, claimed the “vast majority” of American Jews favor of a ...

•The Washington Post gathers coverage on yesterday’s horrific shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Museum. A guard, Stephen T. Johns, was killed, an unidentified victim was wounded, and the suspect, 88 year-old James W. von Brunn, was also shot and is in critical condition. [WP]
•Meanwhile, the man who allegedly shot and killed a Wesleyan University student ...

A few weeks ago, Abraham Geiger College in Berlin opened the Jewish Institute of Cantorial Arts, Europe’s first academic program to train Reform cantors since World War II.
Germany was the birthplace of Reform Judaism, and it has a rich cantorial history, though it looked for a while like that history had ended with the ...

Ever notice that the people who announce themselves as mavericks and nonconformists rarely are? It’s the quiet ones—like Adriaan Finnerman, a Poughkeepsie, New York real estate professional and mother of two—who tend to be the genuine article. Intimidatingly well read, fiercely thoughtful, unapologetically religious, with degrees in philosophy and religion, Adriaan is not what I ...