The following piece originally appeared July 9, 2023 in the San Diego Jewish World. This is the 20th chapter in Volume 2 of Editor Emeritus Donald H. Harrison’s 2022 trilogy: “Schlepping and Schmoozing Along the Interstate 5.” All three books as well as others written by Harrison, may be purchased from Amazon.com. Rabbi
Two years ago, directly following the collapse of a condominium in the heavily Jewish Surfside, Florida, Sophia Barrett traveled from her South Philadelphia home with her crisis response dog, Teddy, to visit the traumatized town.
Teddy and Barrett visited the families of the victims of the collapse and first responders looking for missing persons in the rubble. They tried to provide comfort to the community there.
Reconstructing Judaism and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association join Jewish organizations condemning violent settler attacks on Palestinian communities
Reconstructing Judaism, The Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association and 26 other Jewish organizations have signed on to a letter sent to President Biden, urging his administration to establish a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans through executive order before Juneteenth.
There’s much food for thought in this vital web conversation about how non-Orthodox Jews relate to Israel, featuring Rabbi Deborah Waxman, Ph.D., president and CEO of Reconstructing Judaism. The program was organized by SAPIR, the influential journal of ideas for the Jewish future which recently launched an in-house institute to bring ideas to fruition. Waxman was in conversation with Channan Weissman director of the New SAPIR Institute, a former State Department official and White House liaison to the Jewish community.
The Progressive Israel Network (PIN) welcomes the Biden administration’s national-level plan to fight antisemitism, a plan that demonstrates the federal government’s commitment to confronting this serious threat.
As Rabbi Barbara Penzner reviews her 28 years as senior solo rabbi of Temple Hillel B’nai Torah, a small, urban Reconstructionist congregation in West Roxbury, she told JewishBoston that she feels much gratitude for the community she and her congregation have built over the decades.
Congregation Kol Emet’s new outdoor contemplative space is not a big sanctuary with seating for hundreds. It’s a small patch of land with benches and enough seating for perhaps 100 people.
But leaders at this Reconstructionist synagogue in Yardley want to use the space for the biggest events in Jewish life, from High Holiday services to bar and bat mitzvahs. They also want to use it for regular activities on the Jewish calendar, like Shabbat services.
The Center for Jewish Ethics, part of the Wyncote-based Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, completed its Race, Religion and American Jews project last month. The project was designed to increase scholarship on the relationship between Jewish peoples, race and racism and disseminate curricula to Jewish educators and adults
Serving as central organization of the Reconstructionist movement
Training the next generation of groundbreaking rabbis
Modeling respectful conversations on pressing Jewish issues
Curating original, Jewish rituals, and convening Jewish creatives
