Jews, Muslims and Christians serve Christmas dinner to 1000 people in Hollywood

26 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Holidays, Human rights, Jewish Identity, Jewish-Christian Relations, Jewish-Islamic Relations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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Volunteers preparing Christmas Dinner for 1070 people

For the past 33 years, my synagogue, Temple Israel of Hollywood, has served a full Christmas Dinner to the poor and homeless of Hollywood. We distributed this year toys, children’s books, hygiene products, blankets, and sox to more than 1000 people. We began the project in the mid 1980s to relieve our Christian brothers and sisters of the responsibility of helping the people in their neighborhood so they could celebrate their holyday with their communities and families.

The Hollywood United Methodist Church has graciously offered their facility at Highland and Franklin (a block north of the famed Hollywood-Highland Center and Academy Award Theater) these past 28 years. This year Temple Israel co-sponsored this effort not only with the Church but with the ILM (Intellect, Love, and Mercy) Foundation which has roots in Islam. Umar Hakim (the ILM Director) and the Reverend Cathy Cooper Ledesma (HUMC’s Senior Pastor) joined me as “siblings in faith” from the three great monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

This is the largest interfaith Christmas Dinner in Los Angeles County.

Volunteers served over 100 roasted turkeys with stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables, cranberry sauce, and a number of desserts. Retirees, homeless, working families with young children, and other hungry and needy individuals and families came to eat and enjoy their holiday.

Our congregation (Temple Israel of Hollywood) signed a Brit Olam, “a covenant with our world,” via the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center in Washington, D.C. to address the epidemic problem of food insecurity (40 million people in America) who do not know from where and when their next meal is coming. The problem of hunger is particularly acute in the closing days of the month. The number of homeless individuals in Los Angeles (though down 4% this year due to an aggressive effort by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to house homeless individuals) still hovers around 45,000 people of whom 1/3 are children.

Shelter Partnership provided us with blankets, hygiene products, toys and socks. NBC Universal and Big Sunday provided toys. The Book Foundation provided 250 contemporary books for children. Big Sunday (originally a project of Temple Israel and now its own 501C3 non-profit organization serving the greater Los Angeles area 365 days a year) connected us with a number of non-profit organizations to get the word out to the community that this dinner welcomed everyone.

The chairs of this year’s effort are Temple Israel members Ilyse Pallenberg, Sophie Grossman-Sartain, and Ken Ostrove. They led nearly 300 volunteers for the past few months culminating on Christmas Day.

I was asked by the media at the event why we Jews were doing this. I told them two things; first, there is the dire challenge of hunger that we all have to address actively in projects like this and in advocating public policy efforts in local, state and national government, and second, this co-sponsored dinner is a powerful response to the toxicity and polarization that has infected America in the last several years since President Trump began his presidential campaign of hostility and division pitting one group against another to inspire fear and hate.

Good people, I said, can bridge differences, reach across divisions in class, race, ethnicity, religion, and national origins and reaffirm the oneness of humankind and the principle that we are accountable to and responsible for each other, that walls should be torn down and paths forward together be forged.

That is what we did together yesterday. One interviewer asked me if this was a reflection of the spirit of this season. I responded “yes” but also that this is what we all ought to be doing 365 days a year.

A pure soul – Moses’ selection as prophet

26 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Human rights, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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Moses at the Burning Bush – Marc Chagall

Why did God choose Moses to be the most important of prophets and the savior of the Israelites? The Biblical text this week in Sh’mot (Exodus 1:1-6:1) begins to tell the story of this extraordinary leader.

Born of a Hebrew slave-woman, Moses was raised as an Egyptian prince but was at home nowhere. His place was with God.

The Torah tells us that Moses was the most intimate of God’s prophets who communed with the Almighty panim el panim – “face to face” or ‘soul to soul’ (Exodus 33:11). No other prophet is described in such intimate and personal terms in all of Biblical literature. We learn as well that Moses was the most humble human being ever to live (Numbers 12:3).

Moses is our people’s gold standard of a religious, moral, and political leader. In our era the world has benefited from other great figures including Mahatma Gandhi, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Dr. Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, and Nelson Mandela. Nevertheless, Moses stands alone.

The prophetic message is old but ever new, and as we ourselves witness cruelty on the southern border of the United States, in Syria, the Congo, and in countless other places, Moses remains our moral standard-bearer.

What follows is my effort, drawing upon Biblical, midrashic and mystic imagery, to evoke Moses’ character and experience as he begins his prophetic mission.

To read my poem – go to my blog at the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-pure-soul-moses-selection-as-prophet/ .

“Few and hard have been the days of my life”

13 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Art, Beauty in Nature, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Health and Well-Being, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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This week Jacob, the inveterate victim, meets Pharaoh after discovering that Jacob’s favorite son Joseph is not only alive but had become second in power only to Pharaoh in Egypt. (Parashat Vayigash)

Every Jewish parent I know would be thrilled to experience anything close to this, but read the conversation between these two old men:

“Pharaoh asked Jacob, ‘How many are the years of your life?’ And Jacob answered Pharaoh, ‘The years of my sojourn on earth are one hundred and thirty. Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life-spans of my fathers during their sojourns.” (Genesis 47:8-9).

Poor Jacob! No matter what good might have come to him in his life, he defaults to negativity. The rabbis put these words into God’s mouth in response (B’reishit Rabbah 95):

“God said: ‘I saved you from Esau and Laban. I brought Dinah back to you, as well as Joseph – and you complain that your life has been short and evil? I’ll, therefore, count the words of Pharaoh’s question and add that number to the number of words in your response (33 words total) and then shorten your life by exactly that much so that you’ll not live as long as your father Isaac. [Isaac lived to 180, whereas Jacob lived only to the age of 147 – i.e. 33 years less].”

Jacob’s negativity is surprising given all the good he had experienced in his life including twice encountering God. The first time was in his vision of angels ascending and descending a staircase to heaven at Beth El (Genesis 28) and waking to realize that God had been with him all along and he hadn’t known it. The second was in his struggle with a being described as both divine and human at the River Jabok where he emerged with a new name – Yisrael (Genesis 32).

We might expect more gratitude from Jacob instead of his complaining especially since this conversation with Pharaoh occurred at the reunion of Jacob with his cherished son Joseph.

We all know people like this who see the world as if through a negative prism? Are we those people? Do we put greater emphasis on the half-empty glass or the glass that’s half-full? Are we “Debbie Downers?” (ala SNL)

There are so many examples of people who focus on the negative: parents who pay too much attention to their children’s weaknesses and failings – marriages that dissolve because one or both partners refuse to let go of the breeches, the bad times and flaws of the other – our inability to transcend disappointment, frustration, aggravation, and failure.

In his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey notes that the most well-balanced, positive and proactive people, those who live happily and well with others at work and at home, tend to balance continually four dimensions of their lives; the physical, spiritual, mental, and social/emotional.

As we prepare to conclude the secular year 2018, we might take this time to take stock and make adjustments, to tackle one or more of these four aspects of our lives and thereby improve our lot.

We may need mostly to better care for our bodies, eat the right foods, lose weight, get sufficient rest, keep stress at bay, and exercise more.

Perhaps spiritually we may need to find ways to sense more keenly the Ineffable in life’s mysteries, spend more time in communal prayer or by ourselves in meditation, relish the genius of the great artistic masters, spend more time on our own creative process and in the natural world.

Perhaps we’ve allowed our minds to atrophy and our curiosity to languish by learning little that’s new and stimulating.

Perhaps socially and emotionally we could strive to become more empathic, less self-centered and self-referencing, and to serve others more selflessly without a quid pro quo.

There’s one more area that Covey doesn’t mention specifically but includes the physical and mental and is epidemic in our society – depression, a miserable scourge in the lives of millions. If this is your malady or someone near and dear to you suffers from depression, there is redress. Seeking bio-chemical help from qualified physicians is neither shameful nor a sin. To the contrary, doing so is wise and potentially efficacious in addressing the misery that those suffering from depression feel every day and every hour of the day.

The Midrash notes that Jacob’s negativity shaved years off his life. I would hope that each of us not allow ourselves to follow his example and fall into the same trap.

Shabbat shalom.

#Freedomfromhunger: The Struggle to Defeat Food Insecurity in the US and Why Your Voice Matters – Daniel Rosove

10 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Social Justice, Women's Rights

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Daniel Rosove, Program Director at MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger spoke at Temple Israel of Hollywood this past Kabalat Shabbat as part of “Human Rights Shabbat.” The following is edited from his presentation:

My Dad says that “loving the stranger for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:18-19) may be the most difficult mitzvah in the Torah. I agree.

Universal humanity, dignity, equality; the right to justice, love, compassion and respect. The golden rule. These are but some of the meanings you can draw from “welcoming the stranger.” Though difficult, it is essential.

It is this moral world view that led me to MAZON, a non-partisan voice on food insecurity working to end hunger and its causes among all Americans and Israelis of all faiths and backgrounds. We do this through government affairs, education and strategic investment and partnerships in the anti-hunger and economic justice sectors.

Food insecurity is defined as not having reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable and nutritious food. Basically, it is being unsure where one’s next meal will come from.

The US Census and Department of Agriculture’s 2017 annual report on food security of America’s 127 million households found the following: 12% or 15 million households experienced food insecurity in 2017 – 40 million people – some 27.5 million adults and 12.5 million children – 12.5% of the population. Think about it. That’s larger than the population of Canada.

58% of eligible families and individuals participate in the US nutrition safety net. These programs range from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (known as SNAP, formerly as Food Stamps), a special program for women, infants and children (known as WIC), school meals, after school and summer feeding programs, senior feeding programs and more.

Food insecurity affects some populations more than the national average. Households headed by single women with children experience 30% food insecurity. African American-headed households – more than 20%, and Hispanic-headed households 18%. Large regional differences also exist with the majority of the country’s food insecure living in the South, followed by Midwest, Northeast, and West.

With nutrition programs administered on the state level, debates on these issues are guided by a state’s executive and legislative branches, economic prosperity and the strength and vitality of its advocacy and direct service sectors. Unfortunately, these debates have become partisan and ideological. If you are to the right of the political spectrum, you are more hostile to government aid programs and spending. If you are to the left of the political spectrum you are more in favor of government solutions.

On the federal level, the current Congress and the Trump Administration have represented a once in a generation existential threat to the federal safety net. We have seen the public discourse coarsen.

Today – Monday, December 10, the Department of Homeland Security is closing its public comment period on a new rule that would change how non-cash assistance to legal immigrants is calculated, making Medicaid, SNAP, school meals and housing assistance count as “cash assistance.” This would make someone classified as a “Public Charge” or someone deemed too reliant on federal aid, which for legal immigrants could negatively affect their status.

The proposed rule, in effect, uses the feeding of one’s children as a cudgel against the parents. It means whole families won’t have access to SNAP and it may affect 382,000 people a year.

One study shows 1 in 4 children in the US have an immigrant parent. It has been widely reported that a chilling effect has settled within the legal immigrant community in the US with many declining enrollment in critical and available programs.

We should ask ourselves: should access to nutrition be a civil right? Should it be a human right?

Erwin Chemerinsky, the distinguished Dean of the Berkeley Law School, Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law and Chair of MAZON’s Legal Advisory Council, asserts that the US Constitution’s “Due process clause…prevents government from depriving a person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

He argues that “government inaction in the face of hunger and starvation which results in harm or death can be viewed as a constitutional violation.”

The human right to food was first declared in Article 25 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.”

In the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women, a woman’s right to health includes “adequate nutrition during pregnancy and lactation.”

The 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child declares a government’s obligation to provide healthcare and adequate nutritious food to children. Access to nutrition should be a civil right in the US and access to nutrition a universal human right. Lack of nutrition is one of the largest impediments to personal and national progress. It disproportionately affects women and children. It holds people back from realizing their full potential.

How can we tackle such an immense issue?

First, we must make clear to our elected officials and candidates for office on all levels that this is an issue of great importance to our community and our country. And we must help our elected officials understand that charity cannot do it alone. Food banks and pantries, soup kitchens and canned food drives are essential but not sufficient. It is only a wide ranging, coordinated and well-resourced government response that can help the tens of millions of Americans access the nutrition they need.

We must fight divisive rhetoric blaming the food insecure by writing them off as takers, undeserving or drags on society. In many cases they are blameless – children.

We can direct our philanthropic dollars and time towards organizations that aim to fight the root causes and systemic issues affecting food insecurity that work to strengthen the safety net and engage in the public policy, like MAZON, rather than solely engage with direct service organizations.

You can go online to the “Protecting Immigrant Families Coalition” to submit a comment to the Department of Homeland Security opposing their proposed change to the public charge rule, which would hurt hundreds of thousands of legal immigrant families.

Please do so today, before the close of Monday, December 10.

We must not give up. Each of us cannot close ourselves off to this critical human and civil rights issue. We cannot forget the Ger, the “other,” those in the shadows. We cannot deny them their human dignity.

As rabbis of all denominations, we say it is time to abolish Israel’s Chief Rabbinate Ruach Hiddush December 6, 2018 – JTA

07 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Ethics, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History, Jewish Identity, Women's Rights

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“The existence of the Chief Rabbinate as an arm of the state violates the core principles of democracy. It is rejected by the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews. No contemporary democratic Jewish community would submit itself to a monopolistic Orthodox rabbinic authority. Only in today’s Israel, under the pretense of maintaining Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, has the government put a system of religious exclusivity in place. This allows the Chief Rabbinate to impose its will on the religious practices of Jews in Israel and now abroad.

A number of months ago, an alternative model was proposed – one that is unifying, Jewish and democratic in character. “A Vision Statement: Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State” was written by a Reform rabbi and an Orthodox rabbi and signed by rabbis and communal leaders of all denominations and diverse political views. It addresses all the key areas of contention regarding matters of religion and state. It is anchored in love, support and commitment to Israel’s well-being and Jewish peoplehood.”

see JTA article – https://bit.ly/2rpRPBh

Happy 183rd Birthday Mark Twain – A Tribute in Quotations

30 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Quote of the Day, Tributes

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Mark Twain is among my most favorite writers. His wisdom and wit shine a constant light on truth and reveal the absurdities in which we so often find ourselves.

Ken Burns (his documentary on Mark Twain, by the way, is superb and can be found on Netflix) said of him:

“He was the Lincoln of our Literature. He imprinted us with our own identity. He was the original stand-up comic in America. After he lost everything and everyone he held dear [his immediate family all died in his lifetime] he had to be funny. He inspired laughter from a font of sorrow. His work alters our consciousness of the world.”

Mark Twain (i.e. Samuel Clemens) was born on November 30, 1835 and died on April 21, 1910. We are all the richer because of him. Everything he wrote is worth reading over and again.

Here are a few of his words:

“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.”

“A man’s character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.”

“A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.”

“A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.”

“All generalizations are false, including this one.”

“Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.”

“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

“Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today.”

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

“Clothes make the man [woman]. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”

“Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”

“Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain.”

“Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”

“Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.”

“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”

“Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.”

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”

“Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”

“Go to Heaven for the climate; Hell for the company.”

“Golf is a good walk spoiled.”

“Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

“Humor is humankind’s greatest blessing.”

“I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough.”

“I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time.”

“I make it a rule never to smoke while I’m sleeping.”

“I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.”

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”

“When I was younger I could remember anything whether it had happened or not. My faculties are decaying now, and soon I shall be so that I cannot remember things that never happened. It’s sad to go to pieces like this, but we all have to do it.”

“Before 70 we are respected at best and have to behave all the time; after 70 we are respected, esteemed, admired, revered and don’t have to behave unless we want to.”

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.”

“I was born modest, but it didn’t last.”

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

“It’s like a cow’s tail going down.” (On getting older)

“The report of my death has been greatly exaggerated.”

Hanukah Gift – “Why Judaism Matters” Available on Amazon.com

22 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Book Recommendations, Divrei Torah, Ethics, Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Jewish Identity, Life Cycle, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Social Justice, Stories, Uncategorized, Women's Rights

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This is a Hanukah gift that I recommend. See endorsements below and the more than 20 five star endorsements posted on Amazon.

To purchase the book, go to Amazon.com.

“Why Judaism Matters – Letters of a Liberal Rabbi to His Children and the Millennial Generation” with an Afterword by Daniel and David Rosove is a collection of thirteen letters offering a common sense guide and roadmap for a new generation of young men and women who find Jewish orthodoxy, tradition, issues, and beliefs impenetrable in 21^st Century society. It is published by Jewish Lights Publishing, a division of Turner Publishing.

I have addressed this book of letters to millennials specifically, but this volume is also for their parents and grandparents, the younger generation of college-age Jews, high school students, and non-Jewish partners and spouses of Jews who are interested in the possibility of living meaningful and vibrant Jewish lives.

I invite you to purchase this book and multiples of it and share it with those you love.

Endorsements

“John Rosove does what so many of us have struggled to do, and does it brilliantly: He makes the case for liberal Judaism to his children. As Rosove shows, liberal Judaism is choice-driven, messy, and always evolving, “traditional” in some ways and “radical” in others. It is also optimistic, spiritual, and progressive in both personal and political ethics. Without avoiding the hard stuff, such as intermarriage and Israel, Rabbi Rosove weaves all of these strands together to show the deep satisfactions of living and believing as a liberal Jew. All serious Jews, liberal or otherwise, should read this book.” – Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, President Emeritus of the Union for Reform Judaism and a regular columnist for the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz.

“Rabbi John Rosove gets it. Here is a religious leader not afraid to tell it like it is, encapsulating for his audience the profound disaffection so many young Jews feel towards their heritage. But instead of letting them walk away, he makes a powerful case for the relevance of tradition in creating meaningful lives. In our technology-saturated, attention-absorbing age, Rosove offers religion-as-reprieve, his fresh vision of a thoroughly modern, politically-engaged and inclusive Judaism.” – Danielle Berrin, former columnist and cover-story journalist for the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, commentator on CNN and MSNBC, and published work for The Guardian, British Esquire, and The Atlantic.

“Rabbi John Rosove addresses his intellectual and well-reasoned investigation of faith to his own sons, which sets this book apart for its candor and its ability to penetrate not only the mind but also the heart.” – Matthew Weiner, creator of the AMC series Mad Men, the current Amazon Prime series The Romanoffs, and was a writer and producer on the HBO drama series The Sopranos. Matthew has earned nine Primetime Emmy Awards.

“Rabbi Rosove’s letters to his sons are full of Talmudic tales and practical parables, ancient wisdom with modern relevance, spiritual comfort, and intellectual provocation. Whether his subject is faith, love, intermarriage, success, Jewish continuity or the creation of a meaningful legacy, you’ll find yourself quoting lines from this beautiful book long after you’ve reached its final blessing.” – Letty Cottin Pogrebin, writer, speaker, social justice activist, author of eleven books including Debora, Gold, and Me: Being Female & Jewish in America, a founding editor of Ms. Magazine, a regular columnist for Moment Magazine, and a contributor of op-eds in the New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Inquirer, Toronto Star, and LA Times, among other publications.

“Rabbi John Rosove has given a gift to all of us who care about engaging the next generation in Jewish life. The letters to his sons are really love-letters from countless voices of Jewish wisdom across history to all those young people who are seeking purpose in their lives. From wrestling with God, to advocating for peace and justice in Israel and at home, and living a life of purpose, this book is a compelling case for the joy of being Jewish.” – Rabbi Jonah Pesner, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, D.C.

“If you’re a fellow Reform millennial, give yourself the gift of John’s insights. This book is written in a breezy, gentle, readable style that is welcoming without losing sharp insight. It was so enjoyable and refreshing to read and persuasive without ever being pushy. Rosove managed to do what only a truly worthy slice of kugel or chance viewing of Fiddler has done for me; reactivate my sense of wonder and gratitude about being Jewish. I’m a huge fan of WJM.” – Jen Spyra, staff comedy writer on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (CBS), former senior writer for the Onion, actress, and stand-up comedian. Jen’s writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Daily News, and The Daily Beast, and has been featured by The Laugh Factory Chicago’s Best Standup Show Case.

“Rabbi Rosove has written a wonderful book, a love letter to his children, and through them, to all our children. Prodigiously knowledgeable, exceedingly wise, and refreshingly honest, Rabbi Rosove has described why Judaism Matters. It should serve as a touching testament of faith, spanning the generations for generations to come.” – Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, Senior Rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in NYC, former Executive Director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America-World Union for Progressive Judaism, author of One People, Two Worlds: A Reform rabbi and an Orthodox rabbi explore the issues that divide them with Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Reinman.

“Rabbi Rosove has written a book of the utmost importance for our time. It is an imperative read for all those who struggle with the changing and evolving attitudes towards belonging, behavior and belief. His analysis, stemming from deeply personal contemplation and decades of rabbinic experience, offers clear yet sophisticated approaches to tackling the challenges facing this generation and those to come. This book offers a treasure of wisdom through the lens of Jewish texts – both ancient and modern – which help to frame life’s major issues taking the reader from the particular to the universal. Israel is one of the most complicated of issues and he bridges the divide between Israel’s critics and staunch supporters and moves beyond the conversation of crisis for the millennial generation.” – Rabbi Joshua Weinberg, President of the Association of Reform Zionists of America

“John Rosove’s letters to his sons based on his life, philosophy, and rabbinic work address what it means to be a liberal and ethical Jew and a lover of Israel in an era when none are automatic. He writes in an unassuming personal style steeped in traditional texts as he confronts conflicts of faith and objectivity, Zionist pride and loving criticism of the Jewish state, traditional observance and religious innovation. He is never gratuitous and invites his readers into his family conversation because what he says is applicable to us all.” – Susan Freudenheim, Executive Director of Jewish World Watch, journalist, former managing Editor of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, and a former editor at the Los Angeles Times.

Rabbi John Rosove's Blog

Category Archives: Ethics

“Few and hard have been the days of my life”

As rabbis of all denominations, we say it is time to abolish Israel’s Chief Rabbinate Ruach Hiddush December 6, 2018 – JTA

Happy 183rd Birthday Mark Twain – A Tribute in Quotations