Category Archives: Conservative Judaism

Israel Good News

I think that sometimes on this blog I tend towards the difficult Israel news, and I am trying to correct that.  Here is some great news: A group of leaders from North America’s Conservative (Masorti) Movement held a joint prayer … Continue reading

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Heschel, King and Moral Grandeur

Normally, I don’t post my weekly e-mail messages on the blog, but I figured, this week, given the occasion, I would do so.  If you want to receive our weekly e-mail, by the way, just send the office an e-mail … Continue reading

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The Elephant and The Jewish Problem*

I love the fact that Jews obsess over how to relate to “others” considering the fact that the VAST majority of the world is not us.  We are the other.  Only in the happy, healthy, wealthy American Judaism of the … Continue reading

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The Conservative Movement, Imagined Communities and Prophetic Visions

As I perused several of my prior posts on the Conservative Movement, it struck me that I what I am consistently describing (and to a certain extent what Arnie Eisen is describing as well) is a community that is entirely … Continue reading

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Emerging Notions of Pain and Loss

Today’s New York Times has a fascinating article about a change in the law in New York state about the compensation due to mothers who have a stillbirth as a result of malpractice or negligence. Eight months pregnant, suffering from … Continue reading

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Godless Prayer

If you take time to pray, God will make time to listen. -Sign at a church near my house I can certainly see how engaging in prayer would be much easier, and could be done with much more fullness of … Continue reading

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Conservative Bloggery

Sigh.  They have still not renamed the boring Conservative Judaism Blog.  How sad.  I am really getting the sense that the folks at JTS aren’t reading this blog, with all my great suggestions about new names.  Today’s suggestion: Arnie’s in … Continue reading

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More on Mitzvah

I want to highlight two comments to my post on mitzvah. I wrote: I think the Movement has no future if we cannot move towards a community wherein more people are observing more mitzvot.  I think he [Rabbi Roth] is … Continue reading

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Conservative Blogs With Better Names

As my regular readers know, I have been lobbying for JTS to change the name of it’s flagship blog, called Blah Blah Blah Conservative Judaism Blah Blah, or something like that.  Honestly, I am starting to suspect the folks over … Continue reading

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Renaming The Conservative Blog

As my regular readers know, I have been agitating for a new name for the boringly named blog Conservative Judaism: A Community Conversation. I have made many suggestions, none of which has been accepted.  Well, now my readers are getting … Continue reading

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Conservative Judaism and the Telos of Mitzvah

One of my regular (and favorite) interlocutors, has this to say on the subject of my recent post about miztvah, in which I pivoted off three different posts by Chancellor Arnie Eisen:  The conclusion you reach at the end of … Continue reading

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Conservative Bloggery VI: Mitzvah

More than twenty years ago Rabbi Eliot Dorff, who is now teaches at Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, published a called Mitzvah Means Commandment.  The title of the book gives a pretty good indication of what Rabbi Dorff was trying … Continue reading

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You Must Choose…

But choose wisely.  According to Benjamin Resnik, a rabbinical student at JTS, there may in fact be an irreconcilable tension between being a liberal American Jews and a Zionist.  In fact, it may be that there is a irreconcilable tension … Continue reading

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Family Matters

Any chance to reference that classic sit-com is worth it.  But the issue is a serious one.  Here is Rabbi Jill Levy, writing on The Sisterhood blog at The Forward: During rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary, I served … Continue reading

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Reader Reponse: I say Tomato, You Say Slavery

I got a couple of nice responses to this post about the failure of Magen Tzedek to really delineate what it is the group is trying to do.  (One reader even commented, on the blog, that I should teach a … Continue reading

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