A special event by Arzenu Hungary, the local Zionist organisation of the Reform movement, and the Israeli Cultural Institute was many months in the making. Erika and Tamas from Arzenu invited two outstanding presenters, educators from the unique Arava region of Southern Israel to offer a glimpse of the amazing intellectual capacity, wonderful green projects, research and entrepreneurship thriving in this wild and beautiful, remote desert landscape.
After the days of Awe – the days of judgment and blot, forgiveness and repentance – come the days of celebration, the days of joy and of praise. After fasting, we rejoice in Sukkot as the Torah instructs us in Deuteronomy 16:15:
Seven days shall you keep a feast to the Lord your God in the place which the Lord shall choose; because the Lord your God shall bless you in all you increase, and in all the work of your hands, and you shall be altogether joyful…
The feast of Sukkot, of all our holidays, is the one is characterized by the idea of universalism.
On September 19, while visiting New York to speak at the United Nations, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accused the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel of using their partnership in the Western Wall agreement as a clandestine way to gain recognition. The World Union, along with its regional affiliates, responded to his charges with the following statement.
The World Union’s Beit Shmuel Conference Center in Jerusalem was recently scheduled to host a conference by Israel’s Ministry of Health. Within 24 hours of the conference’s scheduled opening, MK Yaakov Litzman, Minister of Health and member of the Ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, cancelled the conference because of its association with Reform Judaism. The […]
In their own words, Comunitat Jueva Bet Shalom emphatically condemn the attacks which took place in the cities of Barcelona and Cambrils, offers prayers for the victims and their families and expresses solidarity with the citizens and the institutions that represent them. Read their response from the heart of the city.
On August 10, 2017 representatives from the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ), Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ), Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism (IMPJ), the Association of Reform Zionists of America (ARZA), and ARZENU, the International Federation of Reform and Progressive Religious Zionists, met in person and virtually to discuss the global progressive movement’s efficacy at the United Nations in New York.
I’m writing this drash in the week of the Wall: the week when the Israeli government decided to freeze its promise, negotiated through the good offices of the Jewish Agency over 18 months ago, to legalise freedom of religion at the Kotel by permitting egalitarian worship in a specially marked section. Though that section, the Wall’s southern expanse at Robinson’s Arch, has been used for egalitarian worship services for several years, the agreement would formally incorporate it into the Wall precinct and at the same time protect it from a rabbinical takeover.
Death and Life Are In the Power of The Tongue (Proverbs 18:20)
“These are the words that Moses spoke to all of Israel(1:1)….”
Thus opens the fifth book of Torah, with Moses exhorting the people: where they have been, where they are now and ….towards where are they going. For a moment let us return to the outset of Moses’ mission: God’s summons him, empowering him to redeem the People of Israel.
“Let this land be given to your servants as a heritage; do not take us across the Jordan.”(Bamidbar 32,5b). This is what two and a half tribes ask of Moses as the people of Israel are getting ready to cross over the Jordan River and conquer the promised land. Why would they ask to stay on the eastern side of the Jordan valley? They have the explanation in the first phrases of the portion Matot:
The Shaarei Shalom community in St. Petersburg, Russia has begun a new project, the idea of which is to touch upon Jewish history and gain a better understanding of the life of today’s Jews in Europe, specifically the life of the Reform communities in Prague and Berlin. The founding member of this project is Ilya […]
