sid.schwarz Articles Haiti, human rights, Jewish identiity, Jewish service missions, Jewish social justice
When I accepted an invitation from the Israeli organization, Tevel B’Tzedek, to travel to Haiti a few months after the devastating earthquake in 2010 to do some teaching for their disaster relief team on the ground, little did I know that it would lead to one of the most fulfilling projects of my rabbinic career. […]
sid.schwarz Articles Ecology, Environment, Shmita, Sustainability
There are times when even atheists have trouble denying that there is a “hand of God” at work in history. How else to explain the coincidence of the largest ever gathering of humanity to assemble around the world to highlight the urgency of global action on climate change the week before Rosh haShana 5775, a […]
sid.schwarz Sermons and Speeches Bible, Poverty, World Poverty
This talk was delivered at the annual meeting of the World Bank held in Washington D.C. in October 2014. Rabbi Sid was part of a panel of clergy that was invited to offer their respective faith tradition’s approach to poverty *** Judaism is a tradition of text and interpretation. The Torah, or the Five Books […]
sid.schwarz Articles Hanukkah, human rights
Normally we think of human rights in an international context. But recent events in our country have highlighted how the human rights of African Americans are routinely violated by police departments all around the country. White America may now be waking up to a reality that Black America has lived with for decades. Some of […]
sid.schwarz Sermons and Speeches Identity, Kol Nidre, Memory, sermons
I’ve been thinking a lot about memory recently, but I can’t remember why. Sorry. That is a cheap laugh. Here is a better one. Three elderly people are sharing with one another the trials of aging. One says: “Sometimes I catch myself standing in front of the refrigerator with a jar of mayonnaise in my […]
sid.schwarz Articles human rights, Israel, social justice
The season of reckoning is upon us. For Jews, the sentiment will likely evoke thoughts of the upcoming Days of Awe. Both the Hebrew month of Elul and then the ten days of repentance that starts with Rosh HaShana and ends with Yom Kippur is the time when Jews are called upon to go into […]
sid.schwarz Articles Israel, Jewish people, Next Gen Jews, Zionism
Students of American Jewry often point to 1967 as a watershed in the evolution of the American Jewish community. The anxiety that American Jews felt in the weeks leading up to the Six Day War was palpable. There was no evidence that Israel could defend itself against any concerted Arab military assault, no less a […]
sid.schwarz Articles art, censorship, Israel, Jewish community, theater
Given the controversy surrounding Theater J’s production of Motti Lerner’s play, The Admission, at the DCJCC, I expected a full scale indictment of Israel’s conduct during the 1948 War of Independence. Instead I encountered a play that probed the complexity of war, politics, memory, ethnic identity, love and survival with astounding sensitivity and nuance. Ever […]
sid.schwarz Articles, Sermons and Speeches Disability, Jewish views
I did not know a thing about Jewish Disability Awareness Month (JDAM) until a member of my synagogue called and told me that she was going to make it happen at our congregation. As the founding rabbi of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, MD, I still periodically lead services. It was determined by the […]
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 […]