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Berman Jewish Policy Archive @ NYU Wagner
| eNews
July 2012 | |
Dear Friends, |
RRC Ziegelman Hall
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New Publication: Southern Jewish History
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Now at 14,000+ publications, and growing
Some of our latest additions:
Idea Piece for the Global Planning Table: The Global Jewish Creativity Initiative. Steven M. Cohen. 2012 2012 AJC Survey of American Jewish Opinion. AJC, 2012 The Chosen People?: Two Perspectives. Deborah Waxman, Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer. Zeek, 2012 Daycare Centers for the Elderly - Patterns of Utilization, Contributions and Programmatic Directions. Shirli Resnizky, Shmuel Be'er, Shiri Nir, Malka Korazim, Jenny Brodsky. Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, 2012 Expanding Adoption Opportunities For Children At Risk. Yoa Sorek, Fida Nijim-Ektelat. Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, 2012 The Paideia European-Jewish Leadership Program: Graduate Views of Program Contributions and Impacts. Malka Korazim, Esther Katz. Myers-JDC-Brookdale Institute, 2012 Framing the American Jewish Economy. Steven Windmueller. eJewish Philanthropy, 2012 Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011 New Economic Challenges, New Opportunities: The Unfolding of the Third American Jewish Revolution. Steven Windmueller. eJewish Philanthropy, 2012
Penetrating the Campus: Understanding How Anti-Western Biases Relate to Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israelism. Aryeh K. Weinberg. Institute for Jewish and Community Research, 2012 Synagogue and Jewish Church: A Congregational History of North Carolina. Leonard Rogoff. Southern Jewish History, 1998. Jewish Merchants and Black Customers in the Age of Jim Crow. Clive Webb. Southern Jewish History, 1998.
Click here to browse our latest additions. |
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J-Vault: Empowered Judaism, 1956 Edition
Among the authors featured in [this month's] guide will be Rabbi Elie Kaunfer, one of the founders of Mechon Hadar... Rabbi Kaunfer is also the author of Empowered Judaism: What Independent Minyanim Can Teach Us about Building Vibrant Jewish Communities... In this installment of the J-Vault, we see that similar calls to renew Jewish lay empowerment, rethink synagogue institutions and communal prayer, and reconsider the nature of the rabbinate, can also be found in the world of the mid-20th-century Jewish institutional world... From the J-Vault: The Jewish Community and the Synagogue in Perspective (1956)
"I am less impressed by the thousands of students in the Sunday schools, the magnificence of the facilities, and the pageants," said Judah J. Shapiro, "than by the sterility of curricula and the limited time spent by the child at the school." Shapiro was speaking at the 1956 annual meeting of the National Conference of Jewish Communal Service. Excerpts:
[I]n the eastern European Jewish community, the average Jew had learned sufficiently to know what was expected of him as a Jew and could answer most of his questions out of his own learning... because of his learning, the layman knew at what point to turn to the rabbi who then delved and pondered and was in turn, checked and perhaps corrected by the layman in defining a position. Compare this with our own situation!
Rabbi [Emanuel] Rackman adds weight to this description when he says: "Rabbis derive their authority as interpreters of the law from the people, but this authority can only be conferred by a public literate enough to recognize who is worthy of it. ''...
In Chelm, it is told, the inhabitants realized how difficult it was to search for something lost in the dark. Accustomed to deal with all problems that presented themselves, they finally decided to hang a large sign on the synagogue, boldly illuminated at night, on which was inscribed in big letters: "All searching done here." In this way, when anyone lost something in the dark at night, he found it much more comfortable to do his seeking by the light of the synagogue. I fear that our synagogues here are not assisting the individual members with the resources and tools to face the questions which arise in the home and in the office and on the street but rather call out, '' All searching done here, in the synagogue." There the rabbi sits with the answers. Our problem in this area is to give the Jew the Jewish resources and outlook which will permit him to function Jewishly wherever he finds himself and on whatever terms he has formulated his Jewishness...
Click here to read more... Check out earlier editions of the J-Vault. |
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BJPA is funded by the Mandell L. and Madeleine H. Berman Foundation and the Charles H. Revson Foundation. |
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