Newsweek Magazine released its annual list of the 50 most influential rabbis in America. Now in its fourth year, Sony Pictures chairman and CEO Michael Lynton and Gary Ginsberg, an executive vice president of Time Warner Inc., list who they think are the 50 most influential rabbis in the U.S. While the yearly ranking is…
Here is the complete video of Rabbi David Nesenoff (RabbiLIVE.com) asking Helen Thomas her views on Israel. Watching it, one gets the idea that Helen Thomas has always held these opinions, but can no longer keep them to herself now that the almost 90-year-old has lost her filter and says whatever she’s thinking. Listen carefully…
Cross-posted at Jewish Techs For me, it began a few years ago. That’s when I first heard the words: “Rabbis, you need to have a presence on Facebook if you want to succeed in the 21st century!” I heard these words at a STAR Foundation (now defunct) retreat for rabbis. STAR’s former director Rabbi Hayim Herring stated…
Cross-posted at Jewish Techs In a recent blog post, my colleague and teacher Rabbi Hayim Herring writes about the recent Fast Company article that questions whether the introduction of smartphones and handheld computers into classrooms worldwide will be the start of an educational revolution. Anya Kamenetz, author of the book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation…
It’s only February and already two of the influential teachers in my life have passed away. In January, my childhood rabbi (Rabbi Efry Spectre) passed away, and yesterday I learned that Rabbi Moshe Tutnauer died. I first met “King Tut,” as he was known, in 1996 when I was working at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in…
Even as a child I felt very comfortable in my family’s synagogue. I went to nursery school in the lower level of Adat Shalom Synagogue and would attend Shabbat services with my grandfather each Saturday morning. I looked up to the rabbi and the cantor of the synagogue, and considered them to be my mentors…
I was in Israel staffing a Birthright Israel trip in 2004 when I learned about the Indian Ocean Tsunami while watching CNN in my Jerusalem hotel room. The following year, I was staffing a University of Michigan Hillel mission to Ukraine when the tragic news about Hurricane Katrina came on the news in my Kiev…
There are times when rabbis might not be so willing to let others know they’re a rabbi. Apparently that wasn’t the case for Rabbi Geoff Mitelman, a Reform rabbi in Westchester, NY, when he was an audience member of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Geoff and I spent a couple of hours learning a…
Almost six years ago, when I became a Conservative rabbi, I knew there were certain expectations placed on me by my new professional organization, the International Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative Judaism (the RA). Specifically, they expected that I would follow the few rules they had or face expulsion from the Assembly. These rules were: Not…
Sunday the rabbi ran on the court. No, this is not the title of a new book in the Harry Kemelman series about the detective rabbi. Last Sunday, during the pre-season exhibition game between the New York Knicks and Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv, Maccabi Coach Pini Gershon was ejected from the game but refused to…