The patina of bling and marketing which are brought to the enterprise by branding companies and focus groups, will eventually roll off the back of Judaism like so much dust. If we are committed to adding substantively to the building that is Judaism, as judged by future generations—we don’t get there through sparkly things and naming opportunities. We get there by doing what we’ve always done—teaching Torah, davening, keeping Shabbes, creating a more just world.
When my daughter was born 18 years ago, I used to bring her to school with me and lay her on a blanket in the corner of my classroom when I taught. There was no child care at the university (then the University of Judaism) and no paid family leave.Eighteen years later, there are classes of rabbinical students who remember my daughter and then my son as infants in their mishnah classes, the institutions has a different name, and we still don’t have paid family leave (or child care).
Aryeh Cohen writes that this new Israeli documentary “Censored Voices” demythologizes the 1967 Six Day War, raising up redacted combatant witnesses and participants in violence.
Ben Carson repeats the wrongful idea that the only two options are violence or passivity.
A meditation on what Tisha B’av means today.
We all must demand that those who are commissioned in our names to enforce our laws, start from the presumption that on the face of every single person is written “thou shalt not kill.” We must, in the urgency of this moment, repeat at the highest of decibels and in the most hallowed of places that Black Lives Matter.
Jewish organizations in increasingly desperate attempts to attract those folks who have walked away have decided now that the answer lies in “disruptive technology.” What exactly, I wonder, is being disrupted? And, more importantly, where are the major Jewish organizations when actual disruption is urgently called for?
Directly distributing food and survival items to the homeless on Purim can shock us awake. Rabbi Aryeh Cohen went to Skid Row, Los Angeles.
Welcome to Jewschool’s Relaunch Virtual Dance Party! Click through and enjoy Basya Shechter’s rock setting of Abraham Joshua Heschel’s love poem.
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