A World in Crisis Needs a Yosef

A World in Crisis Needs a Yosef

Dec 15, 2023 By Avi Garelick | Commentary | Miketz

Our society today faces crises of overwhelming proportions on many fronts—some observers have called our situation one of polycrisis, to emphasize how crises interact and amplify each other. Climate change is breathing down our necks, wars proliferate, and pandemics threaten our health, all while governments struggle to react sufficiently. Many who enjoy relative peace and affluence suffer from a sense of helplessness and foreboding. We need a Yosef.

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Why We Gather

Why We Gather

Sep 29, 2023 By Alisa Braun | Commentary | Sukkot

This past motzei Shabbat marked 38 weeks since the demonstrations in Israel against the judicial overhaul began. Once again my social media accounts lit up with photos of the streets of Tel Aviv engulfed in crowds, powerful images of democracy in action. I find the sight of so many people gathering to be awe-inspiring and uplifting, and in a ceremony associated with the holiday of Sukkot, I have found some clues as to why witnessing and joining such gatherings can be so moving.

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After Dobbs: Jewish Advocacy for Abortion Rights

After Dobbs: Jewish Advocacy for Abortion Rights

Sep 11, 2023 By The Jewish Theological Seminary | Public Event video

The Bernard G. Segal Memorial Lecture in Law and Ethics The U.S. Supreme Court overturned 50 years of constitutional protection for abortion in June 2022. Since the landmark ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, many states have banned or severely limited abortion access, leading the Jewish community to become increasingly involved in advocacy efforts […]

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Do Not Turn Away—Then and Now

Do Not Turn Away—Then and Now

Aug 25, 2023 By Eliezer B. Diamond | Commentary | Ki Tetzei

In 1861, as a great conflagration spread across our nation, the Bostonian abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Samuel Joseph May published a slender tract entitled The Fugitive Slave Act and Its Victims, an impassioned polemic against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This federal law, born of the Missouri Compromise of the same year, required all federal, state, and local authorities, including those in free states, to return fugitive slaves to their masters, while also criminalizing any attempt to aid and abet a slave seeking to escape bondage. May, a Unitarian pastor, thought it fitting—and rightly so—to grace the tract’s title page with the King James translation of Deuteronomy 23:16–17, which I cite here using the JPS translation: “You shall not turn over to his master a slave who seeks refuge with you from his master. He shall live with you in any place that he may choose among the settlements in your midst, wherever he pleases; you must not ill-treat him.”

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Can Institutions Be Nimble? Community Organizing in Tumultuous Times 

Can Institutions Be Nimble? Community Organizing in Tumultuous Times 

Aug 14, 2023 By Stephanie Ruskay | Public Event video | Video Lecture

It’s human nature to build and rebuild, organize and disorganize. Institutions both large and small are grappling with the challenging tasks of shaping the present and future.  Rabbi Stephanie Ruskay, Associate Dean of The Rabbinical School, JTS, will lead us in a process of exploring communal narratives and asking provocative questions that help us discover solutions.  

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From Justification to Justice: Evolving Jewish Attitudes Towards Abortion

From Justification to Justice: Evolving Jewish Attitudes Towards Abortion

Jul 31, 2023 By Michal Raucher | Public Event video | Video Lecture

In the 1980s, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards—the Conservative Movement’s central authority on Jewish law—ruled on abortion’s permissibility based on a justification framework. This framework assumes that abortion is generally prohibited but permitted in certain circumstances. They based their position on their reading of particular biblical and rabbinic sources. In the decades that followed, many Jewish institutions in the United States supported abortion rights on similar grounds and using the same texts. More recently, we’ve seen a shift in Jewish attitudes towards abortion. As more Jews have shared their own abortion experiences, their narratives have moved to the forefront and shifted the conversation. Jews are now advocating for abortion rights based on their experiences of abortion and a different reading of classical sources. In this session, we explore why and how this change occurred and consider the impact it might have on abortion rights in the United States.

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Liberating our Planet: Climate Torah for the Passover Seder

Liberating our Planet: Climate Torah for the Passover Seder

Mar 31, 2023 By JTS Dayenu Circle | Commentary | Pesah

This year for Passover, JTS is proud to share Liberating our Planet: Climate Torah for the Passover Seder. Passover is an annual reminder that profound changes to our lived reality are possible, and now more than ever, we as a Jewish community need to pursue profound action to stop the climate crisis. This project is […]

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Count Your Blessings

Count Your Blessings

Sep 16, 2022 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Ki Tavo

Ki Tavo is a Torah portion with three parts of interest. First, there are the curses and imprecations with which God threatens the Jewish people if we do not do God’s will. As we do when we read the Torah in synagogue, we will quickly and quietly move past the scary stuff.

Second, we are commanded to bring our first fruits to the Jerusalem Temple once we have settled the land. And then we are commanded to offer them to the priest in acknowledgement of God’s beneficence. When we do so, we recite a fixed liturgy, reinforced, no doubt, by hearing the many Israelites ahead of us in the line reciting the exact same words as the priest prompts them. “Repeat after me . . .” he says.
Arami oved avi—My ancestor was a wandering Aramean.” (Deut. 26:5)

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