News and Blogs
Below, you’ll find a list of all news and blog posts on the site in reverse chronological order.
Related Resources
The calendar says the school year should end. However, many Jewish educators, witnessing the effects of the pandemic on their students, and now civic unrest, are challenging the calendar’s norms. Instead of closing down the year, they are asking, “How might we continue to engage our students through the summer?”
This past month, a working group made up of staff at the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements collaborated, with major support from the Secure Community Network, on putting together a “Guide to the Considerations about Re-Opening Synagogue Buildings.” The document offers synagogues some guidance and suggested methodical steps for decision-making and implementation of re-opening plans.
Reconstructing Judaism is fully committed to building an anti-racist Jewish community. We state firmly and unequivocally that Black Lives Matter, and that working tirelessly to demonstrate that Black Lives Matter is a Jewish value. As leaders of Reconstructing Judaism, the central organization of the Reconstructionist movement, we commit ourselves to the Community Obligations articulated by Not Free to Desist.
More than 600 rabbis, cantors and seminary students from across the country — including many Reconstructionist rabbis and rabbinic students — have signed on to a public letter warning that the Israeli government’s threatened unilateral annexation in the West Bank “would be a catastrophic mistake…violate human rights, weaken democracy, and make Israelis and Palestinians less secure.”
Members of the Progressive Israel Network penned the following letter to Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi opposing annexation.
Reconstructionist leaders were among 800 Jewish clergy from across the Jewish spectrum signing a letter in support of the fundamental right to peaceful protest.
In unprecedented times, Reconstructing Judaism stepped up to provide Jewish connections to meaning and community that so many people found they needed.
At the Center for Jewish Ethics, we have created Jewish Values and the Coronavirus, a guide to help frame values-based decision making in this time of pandemic. This web-based resource collects and curates sources from the Torah and rabbinic texts alongside insights from leading ethical thinkers from across the Jewish world and beyond.
The murder of George Floyd is a blatant display of the systemic racism built into the fabric of American society. To our black and brown siblings: your lives matter. We support non-violent protest to build a more just and equitable world for all people. Let our anger and our love lift us up into a better tomorrow.
The Reconstructionist movement’s Shavuot All Night Learning is a Tikkun Leyl Shavuot (an all-night study of Torah in its broadest sense.) It will bring together teachers, performers, learners, students, creatives and seekers across the globe into each other’s homes to celebrate the holiday.
On the brink of Shavuot, Rabbi Vivie Mayer shares insights into the concept of multiple intelligences as it applies to receiving Torah.
Recontructing Judaism and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association are signatories to the following appeal from J-Link, an international network of progressive Jewish organizations from
Israel, the United States, Canada, Europe, Latin America, South Africa, and Australia.
The Center for Jewish Ethics, affiliated with the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, sponsors an annual essay contest to encourage innovative thinking on contemporary Jewish ethics. This year’s Whizin Prize has been awarded to an essay by Daniel Mackler, titled “Phenomenology of Hiyuv Out of the Sources of Ethics: Joseph Soloveitchik and Mara Benjamin.” The essay is a scholarly exploration of the religious experience of obligation, bringing together a traditional and a feminist perspective.
In its unsigned editorial on May 5, “The False Choice Between Safety and the Economy”, The New York Jewish Week points to the “Reopening Our Institutions” document produced by Reconstructing Judaism and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association. The editorial highlights the Reconstructionist movement’s values-based approach to questions pertaining to reopening religious institutions, and championed our movement’s focus on pikuakh nefesh (saving lives) above all other concerns.
Crystal clear to me, now, is that all the coffees, the story sharing and listening, and the showing up, has resulted in the cultivation of a most rare commodity in our society. Trust.
Framework for Jewish communities to consider in returning to in-person communal activity
https://www.sefaria.org/Berakhot.54a.3?lang=bi&with=all&lang2=enRabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, Ph.D., reflects on the insights gained from daily Talmud study during the coronavirus pandemic.
In this enriching conversation, Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D. and Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz, Ph.D. focus on the things that traditional and Reconstructionist Jews have in common, the challenges that social distancing is posing to community, and ways that Jewish practice can bolster resilience.
Usually, on Passover, we ask “How is this night different from all other nights?”. This year, many of us are asking, “How does this Passover resemble any we’ve ever experienced?” While social distancing has seemingly changed everything, Passover is still about telling the story of going from oppression to freedom.
Based on our understanding of the science and the advice of experts, we, rabbis of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, strongly come down on the side of pikuach nefesh - preserving lives. Therefore, we are issuing these guidelines in preparation for the upcoming Passover holiday and in awareness of the likelihood of continued concern over disease spread at this time.
