![](https://www.reconstructingjudaism.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/9-Av-Event-1-300x169.png)
Responding to Instability: Democracy and Tisha BโAv
Looking to make sense of all thatโs unfolding in American democracy and absorb it through a Jewish framework? Hoping to add new meaning to Tisha BโAv?
Bryan Schwartzman utilizes his background in journalism, media relations and development to advance Reconstructing Judaismโs messaging and storytelling. He oversees content for ReconstructingJudaism.org, writes original features, handles media relations, and hosts the podcast Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations.
An award-winning journalist, he spent a decade reporting for the Philadelphiaย Jewish Exponentย and has written for a variety of Jewish publications including theย Forwardย and theย Jerusalem Post.ย Prior to joining Reconstructing Judaism, he was the manager of marketing and communications for the Evans Consulting Group, which specializes in guiding nonprofit fundraising campaigns. He also writes short fiction and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Bryan earned his bachelor of arts in English and Journalism at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and his masterโs degree in modern Jewish studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.
Looking to make sense of all thatโs unfolding in American democracy and absorb it through a Jewish framework? Hoping to add new meaning to Tisha BโAv?
Myra Sack, a scholar-athlete who turned her love of sport into a passion for social change, knows what it means to have her world turned upside down. After losing her child, sheโs suffered the kind of loss most people cannot even fathom, yet sheโs also discovered that by telling her daughterโs story, she can help others process grief.
ADVOT is a community where writers can express their artistic and spiritual selves in a Jewish context; an address they can join other Jewish writers who are composing from a liturgical, spiritual and ritual mindset.
Cyd, Weissman, Reconstructing Judaismโs vice president for engagement and innovation, was a featured panelist at a high-profile Shavuot program held at the Weitzman Musuem of American Jewish History in Philadelphia and sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.
The panel โOnly in America: The Evolving Place of Jewish Life and Culture in the United Statesโ kicked off a 12-hour, in-person tikkun-leil Shavuot. The Shavuot custom of staying up all night to study Torah dates back hundreds of years, related to the receiving of Torah at Mount Sinai.
When it comes to combating systemic racism, everyone has something to learn.
Thatโs one reason why faculty members at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College are engaging in a year-long process โ one rooted in the Jewish practice of Mussar โ to confront anti-Black racism in themselves and the college environment.
When Rabbi Maurice Harris set out to write a book about Moses, he never could have imagined where that work would lead.
Now, more than a decade later, Harris is heavily featured in the new Netflix docudrama, Testament: The Story of Moses. The show, which dropped on March 27, is among the streaming platformโs first forays into religion programing. The three-part hybrid-documentary series explores Mosesโ story from Jewish, Christian and Muslim perspectives. It intersperses dramatic scenes with actors and interviews with scholars, academics and theologians.
Rabbi Nicole Fix (RRC โ23) is using avant-garde musical theater to bring the Talmud to the stage โ and sound a warning on the dangers of present-day extremism. Chloe Zelkha, a fourth-year RRC student, is building community for young adults grieving the loss of a parent, partner, sibling or close friend.
While the two projects might at first glance sound dissimilar, they share much in common. Both engage with young Jewish adults who may lack meaningful connections or are underserved by Jewish institutions. And both projects represent a conscious effort to Reconstruct an aspect of Jewish life so that it meets the needs of the moment.
Philanthropy and private giving are a vital part of American democracy and deeply ingrained in Jewish communal life. Historian Lila Corwin Berman, Ph.D., has, through her scholarship, shed light on the history of Jewish philanthropy while raising questions about how it is practiced. Who benefits from philanthropy? Who gets to decide how dollars are spent? Do good intentions lead to good results? Does philanthropy advance democracy?
From his childhood congregation to Camp Havaya and rabbinical school, Rabbi Asher Sofman found his spiritual home in the Reconstructionist movement. Now the 2023 Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (RRC) graduate has joined the Reconstructing Judaism team to help even more people find the same kind of life-affirming, spiritually nourishing community.