Displaying 1 - 10 of 11
Eight Nights, Redefined
For some children, finding out that the tooth fairy isn't real is the final straw.
8 Blogs of Hanukkah: Why did Antiochus' army ruin all the oil in the Jerusalem Temple?
8 Blogs for 8 Nights of Hanukkah Blog #1: Oil and the Secret of the Jew
GOTV: What Would Susan Do?
On November 5, a middle-aged woman walked up to her polling place in Rochester, New York. She entered the voting booth, and filled out her ballot indicating her preferred candidate. She dropped her completed ballot into the ballot box and went home.
Good Morning Baltimore...Hebrew Day School
Fellow RAC Legislative Assistant Jonathan Backer and I had a great morning today visiting The Day School at Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and talking with their seventh and e
Every Day is Labor Day
Every day is Labor Day. Jewish tradition expounds the importance of work and those who do it. Even God worked for six days and then rested on Shabbat. The Jewish vision of the messianic era is not an age of idleness, but rather one in which swords become plowshares.
Galilee Diary: Repairing the World
by Marc Rosenstein
(Originally published in Ten Minutes of Torah and Galilee Diary)
The Tzedek Box: A New Way to Hold Yourself Accountable in the Pursuit of Justice
What will it take for all of us to pursue the tireless work of tzedek with consistency? It is in this spirit that I invite you to join a new initiative: the Tzedek Box.
How to Engage Your Members Beyond the Synagogue's Walls
Learn how one congregation with geographically dispersed members maximized its reach in a world with increasing competition for people’s time and energy.
A Special Worship Service for Jews with Disabilities and Their Families
by Nancy Crown
When I was called to meet with a member of my synagogue’s Congregation-Based Community Organizing Committee, I almost declined. I was asked to think about what the temple could do that it was not already doing. My main reaction was to reflect on the many opportunities for learning, worship, and community that I wasn’t partaking of, due to limited time and a longstanding “outsider” feeling when it comes to religion. Like many others, my upbringing did not include much meaningful participation in the spiritual aspects of Judaism.
My daughter, now 28 years old, has developmental disabilities. She was keenly interested in Judaism as a young child, but as a teen, she began to talk about converting to another religion. By that time, our son was enrolled in school at Congregation Rodeph Sholom, where we were members. We chose a Jewish day school for a number of reasons, including our desire for our son to feel more secure in his Jewish identity than my husband, my daughter, or I had felt. We began lighting candles on Friday nights. I took Hebrew classes. We attended services, where, at moments, I would feel an achy kind of longing, alongside a feeling of being an outsider. Try as I might, I couldn’t quite find a way in.