Tagged Reconstructionist movement

Reconstructionists consider dropping ban on intermarried rabbis

Newly ordained rabbis Ilanit Goldberg, left, and Nicholas Renner drape a tallit over Malka Packer during her ordination ceremony at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College's 2014 commencement. (Courtesy of RRC/Jewish Reconstructionist Communities)

NEW YORK (JTA) — The Reconstructionist movement is on the cusp of making a historic decision about whether to drop its longstanding ban against intermarried rabbinical school students. If the policy change passes, as most expect, Reconstructionism would become the first of America’s four major Jewish religious denominations to ordain intermarried rabbis.… Read more »

What’s in a word? For ‘ordained’ rather than ‘invested’ cantors, a lot

Josh Breitzer, left, is invested as a cantor by Rabbi David Ellenson, president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. (Photo Courtesy HUC-JIR)

(JTA) — What’s the difference between investiture and ordination? Plenty, say officials at the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, which has announced that for the first time since establishing its cantorial school in 1948, it will ordain rather than invest its graduating class of cantors. Six… Read more »