The Golden Calf and the Red Cow walk into Shabbat…
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Our staff has been monitoring news coverage of the attack at Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, and our thoughts and prayers are with the Temple Israel community. We have been notified by the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s Community Security Director and the Secure Community Network (SCN) that there are […]
What It Means to Remember Right Now
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar It is distressing to witness a significant part of the world at war. At the center of the current conflict is the clerical regime governing the Islamic Republic of Iran — a regime that has fomented death and destruction throughout the world for decades, and whose supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, […]
Count Me In – the Half-Shekel Legacy
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar There is so much coming up at Society Hill Synagogue! We’ve got a Scholar-in-Residence Shabbat this weekend that I am really looking forward to, with Rabbi Michael Cohen from the Arava Institute; we’ve got all of our Purim festivities March 1, 2, and 3, and if you can believe it, it […]
Hardened Hearts, Open Doors
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Three stories sit heavily on my heart this week. First, the return to Israel on Monday of the remains of the last hostage in the Gaza Strip, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili z”l, taken captive by Palestinian Islamic Jihad some 842 days before his return. These were a harrowing 842 days that […]
On Struggle, Relationship, and Responsibility
by Rabbi Nathan Kamesar Two rabbinic leadership organizations of which I am a part, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) and the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, joined together in a cross-denominational statement, along with all other major institutions in the Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist movements, against violent immigration enforcement. You can read the statement in […]