Building a Better Future with Lessons from Our Past
As we approach Purim and Passover, we can draw on the wisdom of our traditions.
Connecting the Dots: The Basel 125th Conference and the Days of Awe
As the month of Elul began, I had the privilege of attending the international conference marking the 125th anniversary of the first Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland. What an exciting and moving event. Over a thousand of us came together in the same place and on the same date as that original gathering to celebrate Theodore Herzl’s remarkable achievement in assembling 197 delegates with varying Zionist views to discuss the idea of creating a homeland for the Jewish people.
Inauguration Address: Chancellor Shuly Rubin Schwartz
After a nearly two-year delay due to Covid-19, Dr. Shuly Rubin Shwartz was formally inaugurated as chancellor of JTS on May 17. In her address, she described the cultivation of nuance—intellectual, religious, and emotional—as the foundation of JTS’s educational philosophy, and said it provides a compelling response to today’s challenges in the Jewish world and beyond.
Scream About Uvalde, For God’s Sake
Though nothing may come of our screaming about another mass shooting, “like Jeremiah of old, the cri de coeur that comes from anger and despair must still issue forth.”
Cantor Magda Fishman Says Relationships Are Her Priority
After arriving at B’nai Torah Congregation at the start of the pandemic and experiencing her first two years of communal life almost entirely on Zoom, Cantor Magda Fishman now loves to greet people in person. “Welcome home!” she says in her warm, Israeli-accented voice.
When the Building Is Almost Done—and the Real Work Begins and Continues
As I personally prepare for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur this year, and consider the special meaning of the 2019 High Holiday season for the extended JTS family, I cannot help but reflect on the state of the new-and-renewed campus rising just outside my office window. What does it mean to have the completion of a major project in sight, but know you have a way to go before the goal is reached? How do we reckon with the realization that when the work is finally done, other work—the real work—begins and continues?
When the Fourth of July coincided with a minor fast day of the Jewish calendar one summer in the late 19th century, a leading Reform rabbi used the occasion to pose the question of identity that still preoccupies many 21st century American Jews. Should the holiday be devoted to “wailing over Jerusalem’s sad fate,” he asked, or “given over to joy and thanksgiving?” Were Jews more closely bound to the Holy Land where the ancient Temple had once stood or to the “Holy Land of Freedom and Human Rights” in which they now lived?
I was reminded of these questions as the curtain came down one evening last week on the haunting production of the Yiddish-language Fiddler on the Roof now playing on Broadway.
It’s hard to read the news these days without encountering evidence of a significant rise in antisemitism. What’s going on? We need to step back from the near-daily barrage of incidents and insults, I believe, and think seriously about the renewed and age-old practice of singling out Jews for attack.
