Helping parents have those important conversations
Rachel Figurasmith (DS ’15) creates guides for discussions with “Big Jewish Talks for Little Jewish Talkers.”
Gender equity in the hiring process
Sara Shapiro-Plevan (GS ’96) and Rabbi Rebecca Wolitz Sirbu (RS ’00) are working on a more equitable workplace for everyone.
At a time when increasingly loud and aggressive forces are working to sow hatred among us and plant discord, it is more important than ever that we stand with one another and give each other strength—and give our institutions strength—to do the work that needs doing.
Three distinguished scholars have joined the JTS faculty in the 2018-2019 academic year. In the fall, Dr. Sarah Wolf joined us as assistant professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, and Dr. Arielle Levites became our fourth Golda Och Postdoctoral fellow. In the spring, Professor Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi will be the next Ginor Visiting Professor of Israel Studies.
A few weeks ago, I was leafing through the Mahzor Lev Shalem in preparation for the High Holidays, and for some reason my eye wandered to the English translation of the Aleinu prayer. Aleinu is one of the most familiar prayers in Jewish liturgy. It concludes practically every service. I pretty much know it by heart, so I had never bothered to look at the English. You too, if you are a regular shul-goer, have said Aleinu hundreds or even thousands of times, and you probably have not thought very much about the complexities of its message.
This New Year, Let’s Move Beyond “Us vs. Them”
My wife and I had the privilege of traveling this summer through Scotland and Italy, where we found ourselves face to face with issues of identity and allegiance that have been very much in the news in America lately, and that merit reflection as we approach the High Holidays.
Camp Ramah Up Close and Personal
I never went to overnight camp as a kid, for reasons that, looking back, I find mysterious. I remember my parents wanting to send me to Ramah Poconos, the natural destination for a Conservative Jew in Philadelphia, and me refusing, summer after summer. I also remember that once I had begun attending the Hebrew High School program at Gratz College, and had joined USY, my circle of friends included a lot of people who had been to Ramah and loved it—at which point I berated my parents for not forcing me to go even if I hadn’t wanted to. Thankfully, I get to visit several Ramah camps every summer as chancellor of JTS and see, close up, the 2018 version of what I missed back in the sixties. Better late than never.
We knew long before Pew’s “Portrait of Jewish Americans” that a lot needed to change if our tradition and our people are to survive and thrive in conditions that are changing so rapidly and so dramatically that it is hard for any parent, leader, or institution to keep up. After the study, the extent of the communal transformation that is needed, and much of its direction and detail, have come more clearly into view.
