WUPJ News

In January 2006, I attended the Beutel Leadership Seminar in Israel. The seminar, which was then in its third year, was organised and run by the Anita Saltz International Education Center (now called the WUPJ Center for Leadership Development and Education), and we were based at its international headquarters in Jerusalem The Beutel Leadership Seminar’s […]

It is with profound sadness that the World Union for Progressive Judaism reaches out to the Jewish community of Pittsburgh to send its condolences. We stand with you. We share your pain and shock. Please find resources from across our regions and way you can stand in solidarity against anti-Semitism.

On October Monday October 15th, the World Union, and its partners in the Institute for Modern Jewish Studies – Russian State  University, Abraham Geiger Kolleg, and Potsdam University – came together to dedicate and open the Frances Aaron Hess Memorial Library at the Institute.

The World Union was honored to host and sponsor a festive evening honoring the volunteers from Project Yadayim “Hands-On” on October 7, 2018 at Beit Shmuel. 

MJLF Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur was chosen by the international foundation Global Hope Coalition  as one of five 2018 “Heroes Against Extremism and Intolerance”.  The award was made by Ronald Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, on 28 September, in the presence of heads of state and government present in New York for the United Nations General Assembly.   Delphine Horvilleur was the first rabbi to receive this global award.  Serge and Beate Klarsfeld were honoured in this way when these awards were first granted in 2016.

This is an unusual travelogue for me.

The afternoon before Rosh Hashanah, I was eating lunch at a Balinese vegan food restaurant with a Frenchman.  He was telling me that he had put up a mezuzah on the door of his Balinese hotel room, when three lovely young Indonesian women, sisters from Jakarta, turn from their table and say, “I just couldn’t help but overhearing.  Shanah Tova!”

This year I volunteered to serve a small and unusual kehillah (community) in Bali, Indonesia.

This year Sukkot was celebrated by WUPJ Communities across the Asian continent this year with much joy and in a uniquely Asian style. At the United Jewish Congregation in Hong Kong, their Sukkah frame survived the lashings of Typhoon Mangkhut which swept through the city before Yom Kippur. Luckily there was no s’kach covering on […]

Ten years after its first lay leaders paved the way for a congregation in Copenhagen, and eight years later in Stockholm, the Progressiv Judendom Stockholm is proud to present its new siddur – the first progressive Siddur in Sweden since 1877.

Earlier this year, while I was diarising our summer cruise dates, I realised that we would land in Lisbon the morning before Rosh Hashanah. I knew we had a Progressive/Reform kehillah there – Ohel Jakov – as I had had the pleasure of meeting some of the community members four years earlier; and so I contacted their passionate leader and champion – Adriana de Souza – and arranged for us to join them for dinner and a service on Erev Rosh Hashanah, in their proudly sacred space– a five room apartment (up three flights of stairs, in an old building, hidden away in a suburb of Lisbon), which they had recently reorganised, repainted and refreshed. They had a “synagogue”, library, meeting/dining room, office and kitchen with a small balcony.

Soon Jewish families and congregations around the world will be getting together to celebrate Rosh Hashanah. Few are familiar with a Sephardic custom of a Rosh Hashanah Seder – a festive meal rich in symbolism. This new cookbook from the Reform Jewish Community of Madrid (English-language edition) is designed to teach people about this ancient tradition and – for those who are interested in organizing their own Seder – it provides recipes and tools to do it.