Rabbi Sid on Video

See Rabbi Sid on video
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Limiting Debate on Israel Will Only Hurt Us

The current controversy brewing in the Hillel universe is only the latest example of a Jewish community polarized over how we can or can’t talk about Israel. The guidelines, developed by national Hillel in 2010, were designed to provide a basis upon which a local Hillel could prevent overtly anti-Israel groups from speaking under the [...]

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Does Jewish Renewal Have a Future?

I recently had the opportunity to spend some time at the annual gathering of Ohala, the rabbinical association of the Jewish Renewal movement, and at a shabbaton led by students studying at Aleph, the rabbinical training program of the movement. Although I knew quite a few people at the conference, I came as an outsider. I [...]

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Where Fools Rush In: Spiritual Leadership for a Changing Jewish Community

This morning I attend a keynote address by Rabbi Sid Schwarz, whom I have known since that PANIM interdenominational rabbinic student retreat I was blessed to attend all those years ago. He’s now involved with Clal (the Center for Learning and Leadership, the parent organization of Rabbis Without Borders), and has most recently published Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American [...]

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Truth or Consequences

Truth or Consequences was the first game show ever aired on commercial TV in the United States, appearing first as a pilot in 1941. It seems an apt phrase to describe the dilemma facing us today as we try to get a younger generation of Jews to have an affinity with Israel and the Jewish [...]

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A Synagogue Stimulus Plan

At the recent national convention of United Synagogue, Rabbi Ed Feinstein was reported to have said “the house is burning down” as a way to signal to Conservative congregations that the hour is too late for synagogues to think about modest changes in the way they do their business. Since the 2000 publication of my [...]

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