Tagged Rabbi Rick Jacobs

BOSTON (JTA) – President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel became an unexpected agenda item as 6,000 members of the Reform movement from across North America gathered here for their four-day convention. Addressing the Union for Reform Judaism’s 2017 biennial on Friday, Sen. Elizabeth… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Reform Jewish leaders largely oppose President Donald Trump’s policies — and they haven’t been shy about saying so since his election. They’ve marched in the streets by the thousands. They’ve protested at airports. And last week, some were arrested in front of a Trump hotel… Read more »

By now, it has become clear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to address Congress on March 4 has become a disaster – not just for him but more importantly for the US-Israel relationship. From the beginning, one of the chief objections to the visit — and the… Read more »

Inside the Max Rayne Hand in Hand Jerusalem School. an Arab-Jewish school that was vandalized over the weekend, Nov. 30, 2014. Some opponents of Israel's nation-state bill cite the recent proliferation of attacks on minorities in Israel as evidence that democracy rather than Jewishness needs attention. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – It’s not unusual to hear U.S. Jewish groups speaking out against laws that discriminate and framing their protests as protecting Jewish interests. What’s unusual is that the target this time is the Israeli government and the proposed law emphasizes Jewish rights. At issue is Israel’s nation-state… Read more »

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, addressing the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church (U.S.A.) to urge the denomination to reject divestment, June 19, 2014. (Courtesy of Union for Reform Judaism)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – There were amendments and amendments to amendments in a debate lasting for more than four hours. There were dueling T-shirts. There was a last-minute appeal for a joint pilgrimage to speak hard truths to Benjamin Netanyahu. And there was a plea to emulate Jesus and speak… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — It’s back  In the months since the Pew Research Center’s survey of American Jews renewed communal concern about assimilation, the intermarriage debate is flaring up again. Jewish religious and communal institutions had been shifting away from seeing intermarriage as a problem to be combated and… Read more »

A group of women hold hands around the Torah during the Shabbat morning service at the Union for Reform Judaism's biennial conference in San Diego, Dec. 14, 2013. (URJ)

SAN DIEGO (JTA) – What do you get when you bring together 5,000 of the Reform movement’s faithful for a conference in sunny San Diego in mid-December? Four days of singing, learning, schmoozing and worrying at a gathering that seemed equal parts pep rally and intervention session. For pep,… Read more »

The last Reform biennial, held near Washington in December 2011, marked the passing of the torch to Rabbi Rick Jacobs, left, from Rabbi Eric Yoffie, right. (URJ)

NEW YORK (JTA) — First there was the Conservative movement’s October biennial conference, billed as “The conversation of the century” and opened up to presenters from outside the movement. Then came the November General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, which featured a “Global Jewish shuk: a… Read more »

    Reform leader Rabbi Rick Jacobs, shown speaking at the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly in Baltimore, November 2012. (Robert A. Cumins/JFNANEW YORK (JTA) Try telling agunot, women who are chained to their husbands unable to obtain a get, a religious divorce, that they are equal… Read more »

The 2011 biennial conference of the Union for Reform Judaism was the movement's biggest ever, and many participants said it was the most energetic they had ever attended, Dec. 17, 2011. (URJ)

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. (JTA) — The metaphors abound. To Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the next president of the Union for Reform Judaism, it’s a gas station. To Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the outgoing president, it’s an anchor. To Stephen Sacks, the incoming chairman of Reform’s board, it’s a supermarket. They’re all… Read more »