“The Jewish blogosphere is a abuzz today with the latest news from the constantly evolving life of the musician Matisyahu. First, Matisyahu shaved off his beard, which to the non-Orthodox community did not seem like much, but to the Orthodox Jewish community represented a significant shift in religious orientation. This was a man who had inspired countless numbers of his fellow Jews to see their faith in a new light and it emboldened those within the Orthodox camp to take pride in their peculiarities and differences from mainstream society as fellow HuffPost blogger Elad Nehorai recently wrote about.”

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“It was just this past Tuesday evening that a momentous occasion transpired in the conference room of a synagogue in Midtown Manhattan. The event was the International Rabbinic Fellowship (IRF) conference and it brought together a diverse assortment of its approximately 150-member strong rabbinic body. As with every professional conference for rabbis there were opportunities to learn together, to consult on pastoral or policy dilemmas and to provide ample opportunity for networking, relationship building and collective and shared inspiration. Yet, it was during what is normally the least exciting aspect of an organization’s conference — the amendments and other mundane business of the organization component — that a resolution was passed unanimously that will go a long way in addressing one of the most pressing issues of the contemporary Jewish community: the agunah crisis.”

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I would like to draw attention to a group of 15 couples who are, without a shadow of doubt, changing the face of the Jewish college experience for the better, in a profound, meaningful and lasting way across North America and who rarely receive the recognition they deserve…

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It began as a weekend job while in college, a way to earn a few extra dollars, but became much more. Every Friday morning for three years I boarded a Metro-North train from New York and journeyed to Connecticut where I served as a weekend rabbi in a Jewish nursing home. I led Shabbat services, taught a weekly class on the Torah portion, shared meals with the residents and what was initially a part-time position transformed into a radically eye-opening experience…

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The best way to understand a religion is through its prayer book. It is the prayer book that contains the written yearnings, desires, dreams and hopes of generations of adherents to that particular faith. One can explore the intimate and the public expressions and articulations of the theology through a careful analysis of the prayers presented therein. The Jewish prayer book, the siddur, is no exception to this rule. The siddur with its references to Scripture, Oral Tradition and liturgical poems is an exploration through the varied ways Jews have understood themselves, their relationship to God and to the world through every time and place they have lived.

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The last time a major nationwide survey of American Jewry was conducted was in the year 2000. The National Jewish Population Survey conducted by the Jewish Federations of North America demonstrated some startling statistics that turned on its head prior assumptions about the Jewish religious community. Whereas, in the previous generation Conservative Judaism was the most dynamic and largest voice in the denominational Jewish spectrum, Orthodoxy in the 2000s had transformed into the fastest growing Jewish movement in America…

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