Posted in Synagogues on Jun 25th, 2009
Several people sent me links to blog about this New York Times article about how the state of Missouri wants to deal with a neo-Nazi group. They’ve decided that if the neo-Nazis want to perform community service by adopting a stretch of highway, they have to live with that for legal reasons, but they don’t […]
Posted in Parenting, Synagogues on May 20th, 2009
A week and a half ago, Norman Lamm, the chancellor of Yeshiva University, gave an interview with the Jerusalem Post that is so full of insults for every Jew who’s not like him that it could pass as anti-Semitism.
In the interview, Lamm says, “With a heavy heart we will soon say kaddish on the Reform […]
Posted in Synagogues, Intermarriage on May 5th, 2009
Last week Ruth Abrams blogged about an important article by Jeremy Gillick in New Voices, The Coming of the Intermarried Rabbi, about men and women seeking to attend and be ordained by rabbinical schools that will not accept them because they are intermarried. Shortly before the New Voices article came out, we published Why I’m […]
Posted in Parenting, Synagogues on Apr 30th, 2009
A new game that has amused me and my friends in recent days is adding “…especially in this economy” to the end of any opinionated statement. The more ridiculous, the better.
Let’s take some examples from friends’ Facebook status updates (all names changed to protect the guilty): “Lisa Martin is really going to miss ‘Lost’ this […]
Posted in Growing up in an Interfaith Family, Spirituality, Outreach, Synagogues, Friends of IFF, Marketing Judaism on Apr 29th, 2009
Steven M. Cohen and Lawrence A. Hoffman’s recent study confirmed that Generation X and the Millienial generation of Jews, currently young adults, are more spiritually inclined than their baby boomer parents. Even so, attracting young Jewish adults into traditional synagogue membership has been a challenge. Generation X and the Millenials do not necessary feel like […]
Posted in Spirituality, Outreach, Synagogues, Statistics on Apr 7th, 2009
Synagogue 3000 (S3K) has released a fascinating new study by Steven M. Cohen and Lawrence Hoffman, How Spiritual Are America’s Jews? Narrowing the Spirituality Gap Between Jews and Other Americans. Given some of Mr. Cohen’s previous writings on intermarriage, both the tone and the substance of this report are noteworthy for highlighting an important path […]
Posted in Synagogues, Intermarriage on Jan 15th, 2009
Many progressive Jewish organizations have made great strides in recent years in creating a welcoming environment for intermarried members and visitors, but what of those who work for the organizations themselves? Does the same attitude of welcoming apply to the organization’s intermarried employees?
There is no definitive answer. But the Jewish Outreach Institute is starting an email discussion forum for […]
Posted in Outreach, Synagogues on Nov 17th, 2008
Last Monday I went to Mechon Hadar’s Independent Minyan conference. Mechon Hadar is an organization dedicated to observant and egalitarian Judaism. They have a yeshiva in New York and also serve as consultants for independent minyanim around the country that share a belief in egalitarian Judaism. The independent minyan movement meets the needs of observant […]
Posted in Shabbat and Other Holidays, Synagogues, Uncategorized on Sep 15th, 2008
My family just moved to Massachusetts a few months ago from the Midwest. My husband and I are a typical Jewish Boston couple: he is a medical fellow and I am the Network Director at InterfaithFamily.com. Our son is enrolled in the JCC preschool. We are a middle class family living in a very expensive […]
Posted in Synagogues, Statistics, Intermarriage on Jul 11th, 2008
Back in April, I read “The Missing” in the World Jewish Digest, and found it absolutely amazing. (The title has been changed: it was “A Jewish Man is Hard to Find.”)
The article was advocating that single Jewish women should “panic” if they hadn’t found a Jewish man to marry. (Click the link, I’m not exaggerating!) […]
