With Yom Kippur commencing this Sunday evening, I couldn’t resist blogging about food… In June 2006 I wrote about the opening of the first kosher Subway restaurant in North America. I then had a chance to try it when I was in Cleveland later that year (with Rabbi Steve Weiss at left). It was delicious…
The High Holy Days really test rabbis’ ability to handle stress… (c) Rabbi Jason Miller | http://blog.rabbijason.com | Twitter: @RabbiJason | facebook.com/rabbijasonmiller
Yesterday, Israel celebrated its 61st year of independence. When detailing all that this little nation has to be proud of, modern technology always ranks at the top of the list. After all, this is the country responsible for the popularity of instant messaging on the Internet (ICQ was first developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis)….
The student-run journal New Voices has published some thought-provoking and quite provocative articles in recent issues. Their current issue takes on a theme I don’t think has been discussed much. Is it acceptable for rabbinical students to intermarry? This is certainly not an issue in the Orthodox world and I don’t remember it ever really…
I had already heard about Rabbi Capers Funnye when I looked at Congregation Ahavas Israel‘s monthly newsletter a few months ago. The only Conservative synagogue in Grand Rapids, Michigan advertised their upcoming scholar-in-residence weekend on the front page of their congregation’s bulletin. This past November, they invited Rabbi Capers Funnye, the head rabbi of the…
I love reading articles about the intersection of technology and religion, specifically Judaism. My colleague Rabbi Eli Garfinkel, with whom I worked at Camp Ramah Wisconsin in 1997, was featured in a USA Today article last month about the use of podcasts in religious groups. Rabbi Eli Garfinkel, spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in…
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…
I am hesitant to write anything about the recent press that indie minyans has gotten because as kol raash gadol recently wrote on Jewschool for their Picks for Best of 2007: “Blinding Flash of the Obvious Finally Reaching the Mainstream Radar Years After Everybody Else Got the Memo: Indie minyanim.” But since the New York…