Welcome to the Online Press Room. If you would like information about a press release issued before 2001, or any other communications related information, please contact Rabbi Elliott Kleinman. You may also be interested in press releases from the Religious Action Center.
When I hear about religious people being put on trial, as in the case of Rev. Jane Spahr, or religious schools rejecting children because their parents are gay or lesbian, it makes the death last week of Rabbi Lawrence Jackofsky so much sadder because we need religious allies.
Rabbi Lawrence "Jake" Jackofsky was beloved during his time as founding director of URJ Greene Family Camp, and his 27 years as Southwest regional leader the URJ, home to some of the largest and smallest congregations within the Reform Movement.
By Rabbi David Saperstein: The most effective response America can give to the 9/11 terrorist attacks is to affirm our nation's core values of freedom and liberty for all--including the religious tolerance, freedom, and equality that the perpetrators so vividly repudiated.
As a leader of a liberal religious movement, I spend much of my time fighting the forces of religious fundamentalism in my own tradition. An epic battle between fundamentalist religion and progressive religion is raging in America and throughout the world; it is found in Christianity, Islam and Judaism. In the last few months in particular I have been consumed with a struggle, played out on many fronts, with those in the Jewish community who oppose modernity, resist reason, and reject as inauthentic the progressive religious values that I espouse.
Although some American Jewish leaders said this week that they will be entering upcoming negotiations over the proposed Israeli conversion bill free of preconceptions, a leader of Reform Jewry said there remains a "red line" for his movement.
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