Swapping the gender of well-known characters can shed light on imbalances in the treatment of men and women. For Purim, reframing even a story helmed by a heroine allows us to unmask stereotypes on a holiday filled with masks. Read more
March 18, 2019
Haman For Jews and Muslims—Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and Racism
March 18, 2019 By Rabbi Allen S. Maller
Haman, the xenophobic central villain of the Jewish holiday of Purim (March 21 this year) appears in the Qur’an too. Today, many political leaders and want-to-be leaders are modern-day Hamans. Read more
December 4, 2018
The Moral, Prophetic Case for Mueller
December 4, 2018 By Guest Contributor
The mandate of Special Counsel Robert Mueller echoes a story of political authority and an independent figure who calls it to account: King David, Bathsheba, Uriah and Nathan the prophet. Through this lens, we see safeguarding Mueller’s ability to do his job is not an ordinary political matter, but a moral imperative. Read more
November 30, 2018
Chanukah — Moving From Lesser Jihad to Greater Jihad
November 30, 2018 By Rabbi Allen S. Maller
The historical development of the Jewish holiday of Chanukah is a good illustration of how religious leaders can promote a “greater jihad” (spiritual) focus over a “lesser jihad” (militant) focus. Read more
November 15, 2018
Following Pittsburgh, a Sea Change
November 15, 2018 By Guest Contributor
For the first time, I almost couldn’t find a prayer book. That is how many people came to my synagogue for the first Shabbat after the shooting at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue. I knew something was different the instant I walked inside the wooden-walled, linoleum-floored, home-like little multipurpose room that houses the Beis Community (“beis” means “home” and is here a pun on the English “base”), a liberal-Orthodox synagogue and hub especially frequented by millennials in Washington Heights, New York City. More people came than usual — and they came on time. Everything about that Shabbat was intensified. Read more
November 4, 2018
Local Rabbis Defend Palestinian Candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar
November 4, 2018 By Rabbi Allen S. Maller
Rabbis in San Diego, California, have denounced attacks by a Republican opponent against a local candidate for congress with Palestinian ancestry. Republican Duncan Hunter has called his Democratic challenger Ammar Campa-Najjar a “national security risk,” and accused him of being an “Islamist.” Read more
November 2, 2018
After Pittsburgh, Darkness and Light at the Airport
November 2, 2018 By Guest Contributor
People are seeing me differently today, I thought. In that moment, I saw myself differently. People are seeing me as vulnerable. I saw how vulnerable I was. I realized that by putting on a kippah that morning, I had taken my life in my hands. The events of the past week testify that this viscera-twisting fact is now part of life in Trump’s America — as has been true for Jews of numberless epochs. Read more
October 5, 2018
Brett Kavanaugh’s Shallow View of Religion
October 5, 2018 By Guest Contributor
In his September 27 testimony, Judge Brett Kavanaugh said, “going to church on Sundays was like brushing my teeth, automatic,” and was angry anyone would remark that church was not on his summer 1982 calendar. Brushing one’s teeth is a cosmetic thing; it deals only with the most superficial of stains. A religious experience, to truly move a person and be the foundation of an ethical and moral personality, needs to force you to grapple with the difficulty of becoming a better human, with the entirety of the self. Read more
June 13, 2018
Why We All Need Ramadan and Yom Kippur Fasting
June 13, 2018 By Rabbi Allen S. Maller
Jalal al-Din Rumi taught, “Ritual prayer can be different in every religion, but belief never changes” (Fihi Ma Fihi). As a Reform Rabbi who has been studying Islam for almost sixty years, I think it is vitally important for our generation to understand how much Islam and Judaism have in common. In North America and the U.K., Jews and Muslims are the two religious groups that most noticeably practice fasting. The rules about fasting are very similar in both Jewish… Read more
March 27, 2018
First to Jump Into the Reed Sea
March 27, 2018 By Rabbi Allen S. Maller
Here is a fable for discussion at the (Seder) dinner table for all those Christians, Jews and Muslims who want to use the exodus from oppression in Egypt as an encouragement to all who value freedom and justice to do more than just stand and wat Read more
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