One of the centerpieces of the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgy is the “Avinu Malkeinu” prayer — Our Father, Our King. It’s a desperate and emotional appeal for forgiveness, set to powerful melodies over the centuries.
For Jackie Land, a lifelong educator, that passion is fueled by the Reconstructionist commitment to egalitarianism and democracy: how each community makes decisions for itself on how best to live Reconstructionist values.
As founding members of the Jewish Rohingya Justice Network, Reconstructing Judaism and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association joined a letter to Secretary Anthony Blinken expressing ongoing solidarity with the Rohingya people, five years after the Burmese military waged a genocidal campaign that resultedin mass displacement, death, sexual violence, and other atrocities.
“It is clear at Ritualwell how values from the Reconstructionist movement are expressed in the creativity of inviting people to create their own rituals,” she says. “It’s empowering to write one’s own prayers and to create spaces for people who never had a voice in Judaism. To me, that inclusive spirit is very much the place that I wanted to be in as a Jew and as a writer, and I think that’s what we are doing at Ritualwell.”
Rabbi Jacob Staub, Ph..D., is director of the online platform Evolve: Groundbreaking Jewish Conversations and professor emeritus of Jewish philosophy and spirituality and director of the Jewish Spiritual Direction Program at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in Wyncote, the path to embracing Judaism really was a reconstruction.
Reconstructing Judaism joins a diverse group of more than 100 U.S. and international organizations in sending a letter to the U.S. State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) urging that foreign assistance funding for abortion care be authorized immediately “to the full extent of the law.” The letter
Being a leader requires ongoing learning. You can’t learn to lead by attending a week-long conference or by doing it for a year or two. Rather, we want to impress the idea that learning to be a leader is a lifetime of study and practice.
Growing up in Tucson, Alanna “Lonnie” Kleinman did not know any female rabbis or any religious leaders who identified as LGTBQ. Now Kleinman is joining a much more diverse rabbinate, one that more fully reflects the fullness of Jewish communities.
On May 22, Donald L. Shapiro, a philanthropist and Reconstructionist movement leader, was honored at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College’s 50th graduation ceremony. Shapiro is the founder of Vector Reality Associates, the real estate development firm, and is a longtime member of Reconstructing Judaism’s board of directors and past president of the college.
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
