TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (JTA) – The year was 2000, and Michael Steinhardt had just dropped a bombshell that nearly brought an otherwise dignified conference to blows. “I tend, in my dourest moments, to consider both the Reform and Conservative Jews as historic accidents in the 21st century and suspect,… Read more »
Tagged community
OP-ED: Saying goodbye to Kutz Camp, Reform Judaism’s ‘forever home’
SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — This is a story of gratitude. So much gratitude. In 1983, my local rabbi handed me his guitar and taught me four chords. He said (paraphrasing the first century sage Hillel) “Lisa, with these four chords you can play any Jewish song. All the rest is commentary.… Read more »
There are no other Jews where we live. Do we leave?
Oh, if I could count the many discussions my husband and I have had on this topic — multiple times a day on some days. Pros, cons; the list begins. Our house fit us well enough and served its purpose well enough when we bought it 12 years ago.… Read more »
For French Jewry, ‘community’ uncomfortable concept
It’s hard to think of a more innocuous word for most American Jews than “community.” But in France, things aren’t so simple. France’s national ethos frowns upon displays of ethnic difference. So for many French Jews, the word “community” conveys a sense of separatism and insularity that clashes with… Read more »
Yin yang
It’s almost 6 months since we moved to Israel…and I’ll soon compose a contemplative look back at our transition to life here. But in the meantime, I’m doing eight loads of laundry in a crappy stackable washer/dryer set that’s shoved in too tight into our bathroom and it got… Read more »
UA professor spearheads $16 million grant against obesity
Merrill Eisenberg is a dynamo — a medical anthropologist and assistant professor at the University of Arizona’s Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health whose $16 million grant strikes at obesity from multiple fronts. “The bottom line is to make the healthy choice the easy choice,” says Eisenberg,… Read more »