Dr. Jonathan Sarna is the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University and Director of its Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program. Dubbed by the Forward as one of America's fifty most influential American Jews, he is a leading commentator on American Jewish history, religion, and life. Dr. Sarna has written, edited, or co-edited more than twenty books, including the acclaimed American Judaism: A History and his newly released A Time to Every Purpose: Letters to a Young Jew.

Read The September 5 interview with Dr. Sarna in the Forward.

Register online now: Come see what Reconstructionist community is all about! The 42nd JRF Convention will take place at the historic Boston Park Plaza Hotel & Towers. To request a form to register by mail or fax, call Ayelet Tours at 800-237-1517.

Second North American Conference on Judaism and Human Rights Conference 2008

The conference is for Rabbis, Cantors, Rabbinic Students and all who are committed to human rights. Sunday, Dec. 7 - Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2008 Adas Israel Congregation 2850 Quebec Street, NW Washington, DC www.adasisrael.org. Mark your calendars for December 7th and register now for a conference that will inspire and reinvigorate you!

For conference details and registration go to:
http://www.rhr-na.org/story/registration-is-now-open-for-the-second-north-american-conf

Among the highlights of the conference are the following plenaries:

"Zionism, Israel and Human Rights" with Avram Burg, author and former Speaker of the Knesset, Paula Hyman, Lucy Moses Professor of Modern Jewish History, Yale University, and Sari Nusseibeh, President of Al Quds University. This panel will be moderated by Kathleen Peratis, Board Member Emerita of Human Rights Watch.

(Sunday night)
"The Abrahamic Religions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights" with Dr. Arnold Eisen, Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Dr. David Gushee, founder of Evangelicals for Human Rights, and Imam Yahya Hendi, founder of Imams for Human Rights and Dialogue, moderated by Rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, Director, Religious Studies Program, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

(Monday)  read more »

Dear Ma Nishma Subscriber,

I'm happy to deliver to your e-mail doorstep the latest issue of Ma Nishma ("What's Happening?"), featuring news and events from JRF.

Now everyone can subscribe to Ma Nishma. Register at the JRF website at http://jrf.org/user/register then click "Manage your JRF e-newsletter subscriptions" at the top left of the home page to subscribe.  read more »

Newsletter editors and webmasters: Please reprint stories and announcements from this issue for a JRF News page in your congregational newsletter and on your website.

Visit the Tents of Hope Project: www.tentsofhope.org
The mission of the Tents of Hope project is to support a one-year process in which people respond as communities to the crisis in Darfur, Sudan by creating tents that are both unique works of art and ongoing focal points within communities for learning about, assisting and establishing relationships with the people of Sudan.
The tents are not answers in themselves. Rather, they are points of entry for more concrete forms of Darfur advocacy.

This article is reprinted with permission from the New Jersey Jewish News.

Donna Kirshbaum led several lives before becoming a rabbi. (Photo by Marilyn Silverstein)
by Marilyn Silverstein
NJJN Bureau Chief/PMB

September 9, 2008

The scene is crystal clear in Rabbi Donna Kirshbaum’s memory. She was eight years old and had just finished reading a child’s biography of George Fox, founder of the society of Quakers.

“I remember leaning against the fridge and telling my mother, ‘I’m going to lead my people the way George Fox led his people,’” she recalled.  read more »

This summer, close to half a century later, that childhood dream became a reality as Kirshbaum took her place as religious leader and educational director of Princeton’s only Reconstructionist congregation, String of Pearls.

Since its publication in 1994, Kol Haneshamah: Shabbat Vehagim, the Reconstructionist Shabbat and Festival Prayerbook, has been used by thousands and thousands of Reconstructionist and non-Reconstructionist Jews for worship, prayer, and study in the synagogue and at home.  read more »

Shortly after the publication of the prayerbook, Braille Hebrew translator Caryn Navy and John Riehl, president of JRF's Chesapeake Region, began the arduous, complex, and ultimately rewarding task of taking an electronic version of the prayerbook and creating a Braille version which would be fully usable and accessible to visually-impaired Jews. The Reconstructionist movement fully supported this work, as did the Jewish Braille Institute (JBI International), which enthusiastically agreed to make copies of the prayerbook available to anyone requesting a copy, at no charge, once a "blind-user-friendly" version of the prayerbook had been produced.

People of diverse faiths in almost 100 communities in 36 states are challenging candidates and elected officials to address the issue of poverty in America during "Week of Action” September 9 – 16, 2008. This call to action is to bring attention to the needs of the nation’s poor and urge candidates for elected office to outline what they would do in their first 100 days in office to develop comprehensive plans for reducing poverty and creating economic opportunity in the United States.  read more »

Visit www.jrf.org/fight-poverty-with-faith for full details of this initiative.

Protesters at the July 27 rally at Agriprocessors' Postville, IA plant (photo from Shalom Rav, the blog of Rabbi Brant Rosen)JRF calls on the members of its affiliated communities to join together in dialogue and action in response to human rights and social justice infringements at Agriprocessors, Inc, the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse.

To these ends, the JRF Update on Agriprocessors: Background and Action Steps, attached to this story, was compiled to assist you in your local communal and personal decision making.

Alternative Kosher Cooperatives
Here are three alternative kosher distributors, all using the csa
(cooperative) model:
Kolfoods.com
Mitzvahmeat.com
Kosherconscience.com
As an extension of our Tuv Ha'aretz CSA program, RSNS has just partnered with Mitzvah Meat, so our members can order grass-fed, free- range kosher meat from a local NY farm, delivered to our synagogue in time for Rosh Hashanah!

If you're not in the DC or NY area, you may be out of luck for now, but if you go to the Kol Foods site, there might be some information about how to start your own supply chain, based on this model!

best,
Cantor Eric Schulmiller
The Reconstructionist Synagogue of the North Shore Plandome, NY

Dear Ma Nishma Subscriber,

I'm happy to deliver to your e-mail doorstep the latest issue of Ma Nishma ("What's Happening?"), featuring news and events from JRF.

Now everyone can subscribe to Ma Nishma. Register at the JRF website at http://jrf.org/user/register then click "Manage your JRF e-newsletter subscriptions" at the top left of the home page to subscribe.  read more »

Newsletter editors and webmasters: Please reprint stories and announcements from this issue for a JRF News page in your congregational newsletter and on your website.

Seven JRF conregations--five on the East coast, two on the West--have new Reconstructionist rabbis and all of them are graduates of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, including four from RRC's class of 2008. Here's a little bit about them [click "read more" to see the full list]:

Temple Beth Sholom in Salem, Oregon, welcomes Rabbi James Israel Greene (RRC '08). James moved to Philadelphia from South Florida after graduating from Florida Atlantic University with a degree in Holocaust and Judaic Studies. He has served as a JRF intern and led music and programming at Camp JRF.

String of Pearls in Princeton, New Jersey, welcomes Rabbi Donna Kirshbaum (RRC '08). Donna holds a B.A. in Ancient Greek from Swarthmore College and an M.A. in Latin Literature from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland. While at RRC, she held internships at CLAL (the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership), the Academic Coalition for Bioethics, and Greenfaith (New Jersey's interfaith environmental coalition). She was honored this year by the Forward as an up-and-coming rabbi to watch! Rabbi Kirshbaum will also serve as String of Pearls' Education Director.  read more »

JRF has launched a central web portal that offers easy access to its curriculum-oriented educational materials.

The Reconstructionist Curriculum Resource Finder is an interactive, online tool serving Reconstructionist teachers, parents, and education directors. It provides a menu of suggested textbooks, story books and background material, linking directly to the publishers, on over 20 of the major topics taught in Reconstructionist congregational schools. Topics are searchable by age level, author, title and sub-categories.

The Reconstructionist Curriculum Resource Finder made its debut this week at the CAJE 33 Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education at the University of Vermont.  read more »

Rabbi Mark KramPlease join us in extending a warm welcome to Rabbi Mark Kram, who became the new spiritual leader of Temple Beth Or in Miami, FL, on July 1, 2008.  read more »

In announcing the agreement with Rabbi Kram, Larry Goodman, President of Temple Beth Or, expressed the sentiments of the Congregation: “We are thrilled to welcome into our spiritual community an individual who has been such an integral part of the Greater Miami community for so many years and who has been a source of education, inspiration and comfort to so many of us.”

Rabbi Brant Rosen in RwandaRabbi Brant Rosen of JRF's Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston, IL is currently in Africa. And he's blogging from there. Here is an excerpt:

We talked about the ways the Rwandan experience is both similar and markedly different than the Jewish one. Obviously the wounds here are very fresh; and unlike the Jews of Europe, the goverment is committed to bringing all aspects of Rwandan society back together in one extremely small country.

Whether this will succeed over the long term or not is an open question. One woman who joined our conversation expressed her doubts - saying that while the political reconciliation is important, much of the underlying pain and hatred continues to simmer under the surface. How many generations does it take for this kind of pain to dissipate in a community? The Jewish people hav been learning this for some time - Rwanda is struggling with the tragic question as well.

Our final visit was a heartbreaking tour of Kigali’s Public Hospital. More on this in my next post…

Read more on Brant's blog.

Read more about JRF Service Learning Resources

What a wonderful day we had today! The sun shone brightly, the blue of the sky was perfect, and the voices of our community rose together as we opened Summer 2008 on the Aaron and Marjorie Ziegelman Campus of Camp JRF. It was a pleasure to see the smiles as old friends reconnected and new friendships began to form. Campers from the United States and Israel joined us as we began another wonderful summer of Reconstructionist camping.  read more »

The United Jewish Federation has joined with federations throughout North America to launch a relief effort for victims of the natural disasters, including floods and tornadoes, that have wreaked havoc in the central United States since mid-May.

The effort, to be coordinated through the UJF's national organization, United Jewish Communities, will raise funds to help victims in the Jewish and general populations, with funds going to local communities that have been affected by natural disasters. No administrative costs will be deducted from funds raised.

Donations can be made payable to the UJF/Central U.S. Disaster Relief Fund by check to the United Jewish Federation, 234 McKee Place, Pittsburgh, Pa., 15213 or by clicking the "Click to Give" image above.  read more »