Columns

A Clearly Articulated Message: Grant Full Access to the Deaf

By:

Alexis Kashar and Naomi Brunnlehrman

The Conservative movement, through its Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, has taken a historic step in acknowledging that deaf and hard-of-hearing people are entitled to stand with the Jewish community as equals. Not only did the law committee vote to recognize the users of sign language as equals, it also issued a mandate, or teshuvah, that synagogues and organizations...

Columns

Help 'Lost Jews' Find Their Way Home

By:

Michael Freund

Last month, an extraordinary meeting of Israel's ministerial committee on immigration and absorption took place in the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem. At the top of the agenda was the fate of more than 7,000 Bnei Menashe, a long-lost community living in the farthest reaches of northeastern India. The Bnei Menashe, or "sons of Manasseh," are descendants of one of...

Columns

Bono's Nod to Israel

By:

Bryan Schwartzman

REFLECTIONS Nineteen years ago, the first time I saw U2 live at New York's Yankee Stadium, I stood in anticipation, practically quaking with excitement. Last week, as the summer light faded and nearly 70,000 people waited for the band to take the stage at Philadelphia's Lincoln Financial Field, I took full advantage of my assigned seat and hoped I'd be...

Columns

Mourning the Narrowness of Today's Judaism

By:

Erica Brown

Amid the summertime clutter of towels and beach umbrellas lies something darker and more painful on the Jewish calendar: The Three Weeks mourning period,which began July 19 with a fast. Also known by its name from the book of Lamentations, Bein Ha-mitzarim, between the straits or narrow places, the Three Weeks commemorate the ancient siege of Jerusalem and the subsequent...

Columns

Wanted -- A North American Cultural Policy

By:

Stephen Hazan Arnoff and Steven M. Cohen

JDub Records, the innovative nonprofit music endeavor that discovered Matisyahu and other artists, released 35 albums and brought 150,000 participants to concerts and events, announced recently that it would be closing after nine years of successful operation. The principal cause: inability to secure sufficient, ongoing philanthropic support. The impending closure of one of the most promising start-ups in the Jewish...