Rabbi Sid Schwarz
Rabbi, social entrepreneur, non-profit CEO, author
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October 9, 2014

Israel: A Season of Reckoning

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 […]

June 5, 2014

Can Zionism be the Answer?

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 […]

April 21, 2014

Loyalty, Truth and Freedom of Expression

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 […]

March 18, 2014

A Jewish Approach to the “Differently-Abled”

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 […]

February 24, 2014

Limiting Debate on Israel Will Only Hurt Us

sid.schwarz Articles

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 […]

February 7, 2014

Does Jewish Renewal Have a Future?

sid.schwarz Articles, Featured, Megatrends Book Tour

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 […]

January 22, 2014

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

sid.schwarz Articles, Featured

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 […]

December 27, 2013

Truth or Consequences

sid.schwarz Articles, Featured

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 […]

November 27, 2013

A Synagogue Stimulus Plan

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 […]

November 6, 2013

Towards Intentional Spiritual Communities

sid.schwarz Articles

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 […]

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