Newsweek’s second annual ranking of the top rabbis in the country has been posted to the Newsweek website. This year, the list is called “Top fifty influential rabbis in America” and the creators (media execs Michael Lynton, Gary Ginsberg, and Jay Sanderson) explain their point system (20 points for being “known,” 10 points for communal…
Last month I blogged about Rep. Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, when he announced his retirement as a result of his being diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. Tom Lantos passed away this morning in Bethesda naval hospital. He was 80-years-old. I feel fortunate to have had the chance to…
There was a time when the Conservative Movement’s law committee (the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards) did not publish its teshuvot (Jewish legal responsa). Twenty-five Conservative rabbis would sit in a room debating and eventually voting on matters of modern Jewish law, and the only people who would be able to read their decisions…
Many new rabbinical schools have opened in the past decade. The American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies ordained its first class of rabbis in 1999, the modern Orthodox Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) has been ordaining progressive Orthodox rabbis for a few years in New York, and the pluralistic…
I met Gershom Sizomu, the leader of the Ugandan Jewish community called the Abuyadaya, when he visited New Jersey several years ago. Now Gershom is about to be ordained as a Conservative rabbi at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. At the International Convention of United Synagogue Youth (USY) in Anaheim this week, it…
In my second year of Rabbinical School at the Jewish Theological Seminary, my seminar leader (a congregational rabbi in New Jersey at the time) predicted the death of the large, high-church American synagogue. The 1,000-plus households synagogue with the vast, ornate sanctuary and a stadium-sized parking lot would soon see its demise he assured me….
In today’s Jerusalem Post, Samuel Freedman, the author of Jew Vs. Jew, wrote the best article about the new Hechsher Tzedek that I have yet to see. Freedman does a balanced job of explaining the rationale behind Rabbi Morris Allen’s idea for a “new form of kosher certification, which reflect[s] a commitment to justice on…
The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism Bienniel Convention commenced yesterday in Orlando and as the Forward pointed out, the Conservative Movement faces new realities. The Conservative movement has struggled in recent years to maintain a sense of identity without abandoning its “big tent” philosophy and to boost its sagging membership. This turmoil has been exacerbated…
The Jerusalem Post reported that the former Sephardi chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu explained in his book that “Reform and Conservative synagogues reek of hell and a Jew should not even come near their entrance.” I don’t think this rabbi will be invited to give a keynote address at any pluralism retreats any time soon. Putting…
I had to laugh today when an article on the Media Matters website was sent to me by way of my Google Alert for the term “Conservative Rabbi.” This has been an effective Google Alert that sends me any articles or websites that mention a rabbinic colleague of mine from the Conservative Movement. However, the…