CIW’s “Time’s Up Wendy’s” March
#TomatoRabbis and members of the New York Jewish community will be marching in solidarity with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, as they call on Wendy’s to end the five-year stand-off and join the Fair Food Program. This is the culminating event of a five-day fast that CIW members and select #TomatoRabbis are undertaking. Join us...
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No Shortcuts to Liberation, Alas
In this week's d'var torah on Parshat Shemot, NYC Councilman Brad Lander draws connections between patterns of oppression and resistance then and now.
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Peering Outside the Camp
“Joseph’s master had him put in prison…but even while he was there in prison, God was with Joseph.” -Genesis 39:20-21 Bulletproof glass separates me and my congregant. David [not his real name] and I sit opposite one another, in identical, soundproof, cinder-block visiting cubicles at a prison an hour’s drive from my home. He’s wearing...
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Paying Priests, Paying Parents
This past weekend, many of us celebrated Father’s Day to honor the important work our dads do. A month ago, we did the same thing to honor our mothers: BBQs and brunches, phone calls and cards in the mail, “Number 1 Mom” mugs and “World’s Best Dad” baseball caps. As a congregational rabbi, I spend...
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Every Person Counts? (Parshat Bamidbar)
Commentary on Parshat Bamidbar (Numbers 1:1-4:20) Our Torah portion opens with the taking of another census of B’nai Yisrael – the Children of Israel – this time “listed by their clans, ages 20 years and up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms…” (Num. 1:2) This is census number three since the...
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Those who served their time deserve a second chance (Shabbat Nachamu)
A d’var Torah on Shabbat Nachamu Clarence Office, Jr., of Miami, FL, served in the U.S. Army for three years in the 1970s and was honorably discharged. Like many veterans, Clarence tragically fell into drug use and was arrested for drug offenses. He served a prison term and paid his debt to society. Clarence now...
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Each Person, A Letter of Torah
Rabbi Kimberly Herzog Cohen writes on Bamidbar and making every person count.
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A Commitment to Justice Means Remembering Our Tribes
But whether or not the Sinai wilderness was ever ownerless as the midrash suggests, in North America, the so-called wildernesses never have been. Those places — and indeed every square mile of North America — have always been, and continue to be, the home of specific tribes of Indigenous peoples.
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