By Rabbi Yonah Berman for The Jewish Forward
In the 1997 Seinfeld episode “The Strike,” George Castanza is embarrassed when his father Frank shamelessly promotes Festivus, a December 23 celebration that Frank created years ago in reaction to the other winter festivals in popular culture.… Read the rest
By Rabbi Uri Topolosky (’05), for Washington Jewish Week
For two years in a row, our congregation has concluded Yom Kippur under the stars — this past year due to COVID, and the year before after a 3-year-old boy pulled the fire alarm with 20 minutes left in Neilah.… Read the rest
Scott Kalmikoff ’18 writes about a Shavuot visit to Birmingham:
My maternal grandfather’s family has been living in New York since the 1850s, and I am a sixth-generation New Yorker. Other than studying in Israel for a year and a half, I have spent my entire life in the New York area and had never visited a Jewish community outside of New York or New Jersey, so I naturally wanted to experience small-town Jewish life.… Read the rest
By Rabbi Dov Linzer for The Jewish Forward
The realities of quarantine and sheltering-in-place during these last few months have created challenges for the halakhically-observant community. Halakhic decisors have issued their rulings, responding appropriately and sympathetically to these unprecedented realities.
What has largely been absent, however, is a serious engagement with the person asking the question; sympathetic psak is not the same as collaborative or empowering psak.… Read the rest
The Israeli Rabbinic Leadership Fellowship is a supplementary rabbinic training program for those currently studying to become rabbis or recently ordained in Israel. Fellows meet while continuing their full-time work or studies at Israeli Yeshivot, with the goal of enhancing their leadership with the best of the YCT curriculum: unique Talmud Torah, Professional Rabbinics, a sense of mission to inspire and enhance the Jewish People, and an encounter with unique aspects of the American Jewish community. … Read the rest
The support group, informally called “How You Feeling?” is a grassroots project of Rabbi Avram Mlotek, one of the founders of Base Hillel, home-based communities for Jewish millennials that use a rabbi’s home as a convening point for pluralistic Jewish life.… Read the rest
Recognizing that the methodology and skill-building needed to address these issues were sorely lacking in the traditional education of religious leaders, efforts began to integrate such training into the curricula. One of the most important contributions to this effort is the recent publication The Art of Jewish Pastoral Counseling: A Guide for All Faiths by Michelle Friedman and Rachel Yehuda.… Read the rest
Our Rabbinical School has maintained a 100% rabbinic placement rate for all graduating classes. This success is mainly due to the individual career counseling our students receive throughout their training and to the numerous relationships the yeshiva has made with current and prospective employers in the Jewish world.… Read the rest
By Rabbi Dr. Jon Kelsen for eJewish Philanthropy
A quick look at the papers, glance out the window, or moment of introspection reveal one the emotional turmoil being activated on all levels of social and political life during these extraordinarily trying days.… Read the rest
Rabbi Dov Lerea is ninth in a weekly series titled “When and How Does Effective Leadership Make a True Difference?” written by alumni, staff, and faculty of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education of The Jewish Theological Seminary. http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/heart-mind-and-being-effective-educational-leadership-through-trust-emphatic-listening-criticism-and-the-making-of-meaning/#more-93310… Read the rest
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