▪ Thirty years of Jewish music and moments: Thank You, Nachum Segal
▪ Who didn’t see this coming? If you want to be a religious revolutionary, you can’t complain when the establishment dismisses you as beyond the pale. Those who deal with personal status have to stay away from controversy of any kind: Chief Rabbinate rejects letter from leading U.S. Orthodox rabbi vouching for couple’s Jewishness
▪ Adlerstein: Now What – Considered Response to the Pew Report (Part Two)
▪ Bill de Blasio’s Ultra-Orthodox Boosters
▪ Lithuania moves to legalize ritual slaughter
▪ Ban Ki-moon: American Jews have made distinct imprint on the United Nations
▪ New Haredi movement is pro-work, military service
▪ Conservative and Reform seminaries together. This actually sounds a little like R Asher Lopatin’s vision: Conservative movement launching seminary in Germany
I caution those MO (including myself) who might tend to shrug (due to what might be perceived as his “bridge too far” approaches) at the R’ Avi Weiss rejection to keep in mind the words of John Donne: “No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”
If the chief rabbinate can reject without transparency, you never know who will be next.
In case people think I was sniping at R. Lopatin, let me clarify that I was referring to this statement of his:
“I’ll sit down with the Satmar,” he told me. “But my dream is to have Hebrew Union College, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Hadar, and Chovevei on one campus, to move in together. We’d each daven in our own ways, but it could transform the Upper West Side.” (link)
You can see that relevance to the story about the Reform and Conservative seminaries on the same campus in Germany.