A Chanukah Reflection
12/20/2024 08:03:37 AM
It was a moment in the hair salon. A little girl named Eleanor and her older brother Sam were entertaining themselves while they waited for their names to be called. In the small, mostly open waiting area, they were playing hide and go seek. Back and forth they went, from one hiding place under a bench between two customers to the other hiding place under a bench by their mother. They took turns sometimes...Read more...
Rabbi Amy's Kol Nidre Sermon
11/05/2024 11:23:39 PM
Click here to read Rabbi Amy's Kol Nidre sermon, titled "Antisemitism is a form of Scapegoating."
Read more...Click here to see Rabbi Amy's High Holy Day Sermons
10/28/2024 08:15:57 PM
The texts of Rabbi Amy's High Holy Day sermons are always in high demand. Click 'read more' to read her talk on Rosh Hashanah morning 5785: “What do you mean by the Jewish People?”. More to come.
Read more...D'var Torah: A Mystic's Reality
06/05/2024 08:22:20 AM
Mystics are those who sense another kind of universe is present within the very
fabric of the everyday world we live in. They sense that there is more to life than meets the eye. Though it may not be the usual way we operate in the world, it’s likely that many if not most of us have had some kind of mystical experience.
But what does this other world that mystics detect look like? How does it operate?
How do we access it?...Read more...
White Mob Destroys Memphis Office of Ida B. Wells’s Newspaper
05/27/2024 09:26:35 PM
On May 27, 1892, while Black journalist Ida B. Wells was away visiting Philadelphia, a white mob attacked and destroyed her newspaper's office in Memphis, Tennessee, and threatened her with bodily harm if she returned to the city.
Just months before, in...Read more...
Sharaka: Arabs from the Abraham Accords Nations Dispel Anti-Israel Propaganda and Denounce Muslim Extremism
04/29/2024 08:44:47 AM
On April 3 I attended a program sponsored by the JCRC at the Bender JCC in Rockville. The presenters were part of a group called Sharaka, which means partnership in Arabic. With the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020 (https://www.state.gov/the-abraham-accords/), four Arab nations (UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan) committed to pursuing peace with Israel and to ending radicalization throughout the Mideast. Through interfaith and...Read more...
On this day April 11, 1913: President Wilson Authorizes Segregation Within Federal Government
04/17/2024 10:10:37 PM
On April 11, 1913, recently inaugurated President Woodrow Wilson received Postmaster General Albert Burleson's plan to segregate the Railway Mail Service. Burleson reported that he found it “intolerable” that white and Black employees had to work together and share drinking glasses and washrooms. This sentiment was shared by others in Wilson's...Read more...
What Connects Purim and Passover?
04/10/2024 08:03:24 AM
We are just about midway between Purim and Passover, both holidays that celebrate redemption and yet describe redemption in starkly different ways. Besides sharing the paradigm that describes most Jewish holidays—They came to kill us. They failed. Let’s eat— it’s a good time to reflect on what else connects these two very different redemptions. That connection is the agency of the Jewish people. Like the moral of the opening story,...Read more...
On this day April 02, 1802: Georgia Cedes Land to Create "Slave States" of Alabama and Mississippi
04/04/2024 07:13:46 AM
On April 2, 1802, Georgia ceded its western territory—the land that would become Alabama and Mississippi—under the condition that slavery would be legal there.
The Northwest Ordinance, passed by Congress in 1787, had laid out the procedures for adding new states to the U.S. that were located in the Northwest Territory (lands above the Ohio River between Pennsylvania and the Mississippi River). The law stipulated that slavery...Read more...
Daily Life in Israel. March 2024
03/19/2024 12:25:41 AM
This week we hear from our Israeli contact, Ken Zwiebel, who provides us with an update on daily life in Israel. You can contribute to ongoing efforts to support Ken's community at the link found on our 'We Stand with Israel' section on our home page.
Daily Life in Israel. March 2024
Israelis are desperate to go back to “normal” 5+ months after October 7th. For people living not-in-the-north, getting back...Read more...
Mar 11 1965: White Minister Beaten Following Selma March; Dies from Injuries
03/13/2024 09:58:03 AM
Rabbi Amy will be sharing with us information about significant dates impacting social justice. On March 11 1965, Rev. James Reeb, a minister from Boston, died following injuries sustained in an attack by men opposed to civil rights. The death moved President Lyndon B. Johnson to call a special session of Congress, where he urged legislators to pass the Voting Rights Act. Congress did so, and President Johnson signed the act into...Read more...
After Boycott Ends, Pregnant Black Woman Shot on Montgomery Bus
01/19/2024 10:43:34 AM
December 28, 1956
On December 28, 1956, barely one week after the Montgomery Bus Boycott had ended and the busing system in Montgomery was finally integrated, sniper gunshots struck Rosa Jordan, a 22-year-old Black woman who was eight months pregnant, as she rode an integrated bus through a Black neighborhood.
From December 1, 1955, until December 20, 1956, Black residents of Montgomery, Alabama, boycotted the city bus...Read more...