sid.schwarz Articles, Featured
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 […]
America has become a society that breeds spiritual malaise. Among the chief causes of this malaise is the erosion of our country’s civic fabric. One need only think back to the weeks following the 9/11 tragedy to recall the overwhelming sense of American common purpose: Residing in the heart of every American, that commonality made […]
sid.schwarz Sermons and Speeches
Two years after John F. Kennedy was elected Senator from Massachusetts, he wrote a book called Profiles in Courage that would win a Pulitzer Prize and also help propel this handsome young senator into the White House three years later. Kennedy, a history buff, chose to profile eight political figures whose courage while in office […]
sid.schwarz Articles, Featured Fellowship program
Organizations throughout the American Jewish community are painfully aware that the strategies and programs that may have been effective for a previous generation will no longer meet the needs of the younger generation of Jews who have been raised in a dramatically different world than that of their parents or grandparents. Indeed, many of those […]
sid.schwarz Articles, Megatrends Book Tour
Jewish Megatrends: Rabbi offers a new way to think of ourselves: “tribal,” and “covenantal” Gary Rosenblatt New York Jewish Week, 5/22/2013 Rabbi Sidney Schwarz recalls the exact words of a comment from a liberal rabbinical student that disturbed him profoundly. “We were at a retreat, and he said to me, ‘I didn’t go to […]
sid.schwarz Articles, Megatrends Book Tour
Rabbi’s Message for American Jews: Change or Die Interview with Lauren Markoe posted on the Religious News Service (RNS) Rabbi Sidney Schwarz, ordained in the liberal Reconstructionist tradition, sees a divide between generations of American Jews that could spell disaster for the community. One generation he calls “legacy” or “tribal” Jews — those who built […]
sid.schwarz Megatrends Book Tour
In the past two weeks we held a beautiful book launch at my home shul, Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, MD and then I did events in New York and Boston. The New York event was held at the JCC of Manhattan, directed by my good friend, Rabbi Joy Levitt who is also […]
Last month I was invited to speak at the Jewish Funders Network’s (JFN) annual conference in Los Angeles. JFN has emerged as an important player in the American Jewish community. As Jewish Federation fundraising has been relatively stagnant for the last two decades, family foundations have emerged as a very important source of philanthropic venture […]
sid.schwarz Megatrends Book Tour
I’ve just completed the first segment of a national book tour which will take me to ten cities over the next few months. Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future (Jewish Lights) was published March 1st and I just returned from my second trip to the West Coast where I spoke at […]
sid.schwarz Sermons and Speeches
Periodically, I have the joy and privilege of leading services at Adat Shalom in Bethesda, MD. I am the founding rabbi of the congregation and on most shabbatot I am “in the pews” (even though we have individual seats and not pews). But when I conduct services it is also my prerogative to frame the Torah discussion. […]