Who attended Barack's Amazing White House Seder?

Who attended Barack Obama's Amazing White House Seder? The Washington Post provides the answer with an official picture from the event. We heard that lots of people asked for invitations. Clearly this was a personal event for Barack and his family and some friends and close advisors, not a political opportunity.

The blogs have pored over the photo to discern that the attendees used the Maxwell House Haggadah, one that has been distributed free by the coffee company for over 50 years!

The WP article lists the attendees.

Washington Life: A Low-Key, High Profile Seder
By Garance Franke-Ruta
Last night, President Obama held what the White House believes is the first Seder to be hosted by a sitting American president at the White House. A small affair, the private event in the Old Family Dining Room was a kind of reunion for its participants, a number of whom had attended an informal Seder together a year ago in the basement of the Sheraton Hotel in Harrisburg, Penn.

Organized by Eric Lesser, a class of 2007 Harvard graduate who worked as a luggage wrangler and driver on then-candidate Barack Obama's campaign, the 2008 Seder was an impromptu marking of the annual Jewish holiday celebrating the escape from slavery in Egypt. Obama joined the dinner's young organizers in the basement, along with his close longtime friends Valerie Jarrett and Eric Whitaker, who were traveling with him at the time.

At the conclusion of the Seder, Obama and the assembled group jokingly added "Next year in the White House!" after the traditional Seder refrain "Next year in Jerusalem!"

And so it was. Lesser, a campaign legend for his dancing skills and heroic rescues of wayward press suitcases, is now a special assistant to Obama adviser David Axelrod with a West Wing office abutting the president's, and organized the traditional second night of Passover service.

The menu was traditional Eastern European: matzoh ball soup, brisket, roasted chicken, noodle kugel and macaroons for dessert. The White House chefs cooked the food but used recipes provided by the attendees' families.

Attending, beginning on the president's left and going clockwise, were: Samantha Tubman, assistant social secretary; Melissa Winter, the first lady's deputy chief of staff, Sasha Obama, Malia Obama and first lady Michelle Obama.

Continuing clockwise are: associate White House counsel Susan Sher, her son Evan Moore and Michael Cohen (both obscured); Valerie Jarrett, director of the office of public liason; and Eric Whitaker, a longtime friend of the Obamas (obscured).

On the opposite side of the table, starting on the president's right and continuing counterclockwise, are: Sher's husband Neil Cohen; Laura Moser (Arun Chaudhary's wife); Chaudhary, the White House videographer; Herbie Ziskend, another 2007 college graduate and former campaign baggage handler, now an aide to Vice President Biden; Eric Lesser and his father, Martin Lesser; Lisa Kohnke, deputy director of advance; Dana M. Lewis, the first lady's personal aide; and Obama personal assistant Reggie Love.

The guests using pillows are doing so not because the White House chairs are uncomfortable, but because of the contemporary custom of using pillows to symbolize the Passover service injunction to eat the meal reclining, itself a means of symbolizing being at peace and free.

Silly Newsweek List of Top Rabbis Gets an Even Sillier Commentary from Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic

That Silly Newsweek List of Top Rabbis gets an even sillier commentary from Jeffrey Goldberg in the Atlantic: An Annotated Guide to America's Top Rabbis.

The difference - Goldberg intended to poke fun when merited.

Update (4/17/2009): Steven I. Weiss on the Huffington Post agrees with us...about the value of the list and we commented now on his post:

yes the newsweek exercise was silly, the result was demeaning to many hard working and sincere pulpit rabbis and academic theologians in the American Jewish community who are not self-promoting celebrities. it would have been totally okay if the list were the "50 top celebrity rabbis" - and i mean this truly - there is nothing wrong with being a celebrity rabbi. just be clear that contrary to the superficial newsweek mentality, celebrity is not the same thing as influence in our society.

Writer Nathan Englander's Talmudic Passover Reminiscence in the Times

We knew if we kept this blog going long enough, the world at large would begin to recognize the utter centrality of the Talmud.

Writer Nathan Englander's Talmudic Passover reminiscence in the Times begins in his op-ed, "MY life has turned Talmudic. A friend, aware of my religious upbringing, talked me into doing a new translation of the Haggadah..."

Wow. Englander, who recently was a "proudly and radically secular" Jew, is now claiming to have gone Talmudic. We like how that sounds.

And we like Nathan the writer. He's a lyrical scribe who can evoke strong emotion in a few lines, like these in his op-ed about his childhood seder memories,

And the rituals in our home were many. I remember stealing and hiding the afikoman during the endless Seder meal (a tradition meant to keep youngsters awake). I remember all the preparation that went into that meal, the heavy brass mortar and pestle in a kitchen filled with steam, and the dishes — my great-great grandmother’s china, used two nights a year for 100 and more. The wine was decanted into carafes, the salt served in filigreed silver wells. We were not fancy people, CorningWare white the rest of the year. But these two nights, remembering slavery, were to be celebrated as if we were kings, the poor seated with princes, all meant to recline.

Strong stuff. We look forward to reading his Haggadah. Here is the rest of his Talmudic op-ed, "The Passover Song"...

JP: Obama's Amazing White House Seder

Can we say, "Guess who's coming to Seder?"

This is an enormously meaningful story for the Jews of America. (HT to Town Crier.)

Happy Passover to all.

Obama to host Seder Thursday night

HILARY LEILA KRIEGER, Jerusalem Post correspondent

US President Barack Obama will celebrate Passover Thursday night with staff and friends in what is believed to be the first White House Seder attended by an American president.

The event was slipped onto the president's public schedule Tuesday night with little fanfare, following a letter signed by Obama earlier in the day wishing Americans who mark the day a "peaceful and relaxing holiday."

While presidential proclamations in honor of Passover have been common throughout the administrations of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, this year's Seder is believed to be the first of its kind.

"I'm really happy to hear about it," said Steve Rabinowitz, who once led a staff Seder in the Clinton White House but didn't know of any White House Seder in which the president had personally taken part before now. "It's been an extremely open White House to all faith communities, certainly including ours."

William Daroff, who runs the United Jewish Communities' Washington office, recalled that former president Franklin D. Roosevelt snuck out the back door of the White House in 1943 to avoid seeing rabbis marching out front to demand US action to save European Jews from the Nazis.

"Sixty-six years later the President of the United States is spending Thursday evening with his friends and family celebrating the liberation and survival of the Jewish people," Daroff noted, calling the event "a testament to how far we have come as a Jewish people in America.

"Jews are a vital component in the mosaic that is American culture and society. Our welcome through the front door, and the dining room door, of the White House speaks to the inclusiveness of today's America and of President Obama," he said. "This night is indeed different from all other nights."

In his letter, Obama called the story of Jews' ascent from slavery to freedom in the Land of Israel as "among the most powerful stories of suffering and redemption in human history," accompanied by rituals and symbols that indicate "the beauty of freedom and the responsibility it entails."

He also said the holiday presented a message for all humankind. "As part of a larger global community, we all must work to ensure that our brothers and sisters of every race, religion, culture and nationality are free from bondage and repression, and are able to live in peace."

He concluded his letter with the traditional Hebrew greeting "chag sameach," or happy holiday.

Though Passover starts on Wednesday evening, Obama will be hosting the second Seder, on Thursday night, apparently so that those in attendance can celebrate with their families on the first night.

The guest list was not immediately available, though it is likely to include top Obama advisors David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel, both of whom are Jewish, as well as some of the key Jewish donors to Obama's presidential campaign.

Rabinowitz said that thought he hadn't been invited, "I'm only sorry that I won't be there to see the president and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel say at the same time, 'Once we were all slaves. Now we are all free.'"

Newsweek Chronicles the Recession in Christianity in America

Newsweek's big RELIGION feature this year is Jon Meacham's penetrating essay on the current state of religion, i.e., Christianity, in our good land. If the title "The End of Christian America" without a question mark looks like it is a mistake to you, then you are not alone. The article summary promises to investigate, "The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become."

The essay combines statistics with anecdotes and some sweeping historical observations, in the expected Newsweek style. It's written from the vantage point of an editor looking out on America from his upper story corner magazine office.

To get your attention the writer gives you some startling clear news, e.g.,

...the new NEWSWEEK Poll, fewer people now think of the United States as a "Christian nation" than did so when George W. Bush was president (62 percent in 2009 versus 69 percent in 2008). Two thirds of the public (68 percent) now say religion is "losing influence" in American society, while just 19 percent say religion's influence is on the rise. The proportion of Americans who think religion "can answer all or most of today's problems" is now at a historic low of 48 percent. During the Bush 43 and Clinton years, that figure never dropped below 58 percent.

Meacham hedges this and the other statistics that he cites quite a bit warning us not to see them as any indications that we are entering into a "post-Christian" era in the USA.

There is always a lot for the chattering masses to debate in the sweeping generalizations of cover stories in weekly magazines. (There are 1500+ comments online for this article as of today, a number sure to grow. Everyone wants to get into this act.)

Meacham comes close to sounding like he is able to tell us what will come next in our great country. We consistently rail against the predictors of our future because we see it always as a thinly veiled way to try to advance a hidden agenda.

The one point glossed over by Meacham is the search for culpability at the top to explain the weakening of American affiliation. No, we don't mean he should seek to blame the ministers, priests, rabbis and imams for not being charismatic or energetic enough. There are good and bad actors and actions in all areas of Christian hierarchies up to and including the Pope. There is nothing right or wrong with the product that they have to offer. And all the fancy packaging in the universe is not going to make more than a 1 or 2 percent difference in the palatability of our Western religions.

No, we think the eight years under George Bush during which he cynically used religious issues and faith communities as a means to achieve and maintain political control and to bully our nation has led to the current religious recession. And that retreat is what Meacham is chronicling in the essay.

This recession in Christian religious affiliation is quite tangible, says Newsweek. We fear that it may deepen and become a worldwide faith-depression. That's happened in the past. Still, we are optimistic that with the right kinds of stimulus packages and rescue plans, the systems of religious affiliations may be saved from bankruptcy. I don't want to belabor the metaphor. You get the point.

Here is the article link.

The Age: Scientology, Kabbalah, Buddhism and the other popular Hollywood religions

"Another passing fad or a genuine search for meaning? Stephanie Bunbury parses and unpacks the complicated relationship between celebrities and religion." An appropriately entertaining, superficial, derivative, armchair essay on Scientology, Kabbalah and the other popular Hollywood religions from Melbourne's The Age.

Like a prayer
by Stephanie Bunbury

Before L. Ron Hubbard wrote Dianetics, according to the memoirs of several of his old muckers in science fiction, he told them that the way to make real money would be to start a religion. He went on to invent Scientology, then took it to its natural heartland, Los Angeles, where the Church of Scientology's luxurious Celebrity Centre caters to the very particular needs of the famous.

Right from the start, he directed his underlings to target the stars. So sneer as you might at Scientology's mix of banal self-help techniques, comic-book mythology about invading aliens and bizarre layers of secrecy, there is no denying that time has proved Hubbard to be, in one way or another, a true visionary.
Hubbard could have just been following the money. Actors can be paid as much as $US20 million for making a single film; you could reasonably expect that an effective marketing campaign would find at least a few both able and willing to pay the $US360,000 it reportedly costs to reach Scientology's innermost sanctum of understanding. But, in fact, it wasn't just a matter of finding clusters of people with startling amounts of money who were less likely to be hard-headed than, say, bankers about how they spent it. Even if they didn't pay anything, they would be worth the effort.

Because Hubbard and his followers clearly recognised that if you want to reach hearts and minds out there in the world, you cannot do better than have a sprinkling of celebrities to carry the message. Nobody knows how many Scientologists there are, but their starry list of known acolytes includes Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Kirstie Alley, Jenna Elfman, Giovanni Ribisi and any number of others.

Tom Cruise was Scientology's beaming poster boy for years before his unbridled couch-bouncing on Oprah Winfrey's show heralded a series of appearances in which his enthusiasm for his life as an Operating Thetan finally rendered him incoherent. "Now is the time, OK?" he said, somewhat mystifyingly, in a typical outburst. "It is being a Scientologist; people are turning to you, so you better know it ... And if you don't, you know, go and learn it!"

In America, where entertainment is a prime export, celebrities also enjoy unparalleled access to the corridors of power. When the US put pressure on Germany to legalise Scientology through the international forum of the Helsinki Commission, it was John Travolta, Isaac Hayes and Chick Corea - all prominent and committed Scientologists - who were on hand to speak on its behalf. They also published an open letter, signed by a wish list of Hollywood celebrities, comparing the German Government's stance to that of the Nazis.

Successive German governments have not relented, but Cruise reinforced the message recently by choosing to play Claus von Stauffenberg, a German national hero who was executed for his part in a military plot to kill Hitler, in a film made in Berlin. It wasn't hard to join Valkyrie's dots: here was a Scientologist standing up, once again, to the Nazis.

But while it is clear enough why marginal religions need the stars, why the stars are so susceptible to them is more mysterious. In a country where 81 per cent of the population identifies with a specific religion, the entertainment industry has always been notably agnostic.

About a third of Americans identify as born-again Christians, an exclusive path to salvation that is not too compatible with a business full of Jews, gays and the generally damned. If there are people in Hollywood who have been born again, they aren't too evangelical about it.

The spectacular exception is Stephen Baldwin, raised a Catholic along with brothers Alec, William and Daniel, who saw the light after September 11 and has since gone on the road with his right-on, right-wing "Livin' It" mission to the young and tattoo-friendly, inviting tens of thousands of young boys to sign "decision cards" promising to join him in "the gnarliest thrill ride" with Jesus. His conversion came complete with a flaming variety of conservatism; he now believes, for example, that efforts to end global poverty and violence are examples of the "stupid arrogance" that rightly earns God's wrath. Bono, he just knows, is in league with the Devil.

Celebrity religions are cut from a much smoother cloth than this. Fifty years after Scientology found a home in Hollywood, a secularised version of the Jewish mystical cult of Kabbalah has become the spiritual choice de nos jours; adherents range from Demi Moore to Gwyneth Paltrow.

Meanwhile, we are into our second generation of Buddhists: Goldie Hawn has passed the baton to Kate Hudson. There is even, on the shadowy fringe, a sybaritic Church of Satan that could once claim Jayne Mansfield as a member. Faith-hopping is a Hollywood commonplace: even Tom Cruise, in his pre-movie days, was a Franciscan seminarian.

The explanation for this religious frailty may lie in the nature of acting as much as the shared characteristics of people who do it. Actors, it is often noted, are generally insecure. But that's inevitable, surely, given that even the famous ones don't know where the next job is coming from and the job depends not on experience or even a skill set, but on whether some guy in a suit thinks they're hot. They only have themselves to sell.

They can see, moreover, that those selves are under constant scrutiny; whole magazines are devoted to passing on glimpses of their cellulite, signs of marital breakdown or evidence of creeping insanity. Apparently, everyone is looking at the stars, all the time. Not that they find that a negative thing, necessarily. Not at all. They didn't get into this business, most of them, in order to stay anonymous. Or to be poor. Or to make nice, necessarily. And the new religions don't expect them to.

Kabbalah was originally an esoteric occult offshoot of Judaism based on a 13th-century commentary on the Torah called the Zohar. It purported to explore the nature of God and the universe via arcane forms of mysticism - using numerology to reveal hidden truths in the Torah's words, for example - that were considered so complex that Kabbalah studies could only be undertaken by Jewish male scholars over 40 who had spent their lives poring over the sacred texts.

Karen and Philip Berg changed all that. In 1971 they opened their first Kabbalah Centre, aiming to offer a simplified version of this pursuit to everyone, Jew or Gentile. Their "technology of the soul" - or "McMysticism" in the eyes of its critics - is largely stripped of any faith content or even Hebrew words that might "alienate people", according to a centre spokesman.

Madonna was first seen wearing Kabbalah's defining $26 red string (supposedly cut from an ur-string wound around Rachel's tomb in Jerusalem, although reports that they are labelled "Made in China" suggest this may be true only in a spiritual sense) in 2005. Where Sandra Bernhard - her sometime gal pal - had led, she followed, eventually bringing successive bosom chums Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan into the fold, albeit temporarily. It was a great story. There would have been less fuss, the star complained, if she had "joined the Nazi party". It is intriguing to note, just in passing, how often those jackboots march through the argument.

Both Scientology and Kabbalah are career-positive: being in the right mental place, they suggest, is crucial to the commercial success that is the sole measure of worth on the Hollywood scale. "Why is Kabbalah suddenly so attractive for artists of various domains, you may wonder?" writes the entertainment editor on the Softpedia website. "The answer is pretty simple: because it promotes physical welfare and wellness, because the 'divine system of wisdom' is primarily based on the principle that the 'Creator wants you to have everything you want': that is, money, good relationships, love and happiness. What more could one man ask from his petty existence on Earth?"

Actually, apart from the candle-lighting and talk of chakras, testimony of its aficionados suggests that Kabbalah, like the less controversial aspects of Scientology, is largely a variety of self-help. Ashton Kutcher, for example, explained that Kabbalah had improved his relationship with Demi Moore. "It is one of the essential ingredients in the success in our marriage," he said last year. "Every time that we come against a challenge, we turn to the tools we have learned and a solution follows."

Before Moore discovered Kabbalah, she was a disciple of the fantastically successful self-help guru Deepak Chopra - an Indian doctor whose advocacy of meditation owes a good deal, in turn, to Beatles guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi - whose success in Hollywood has made him a celebrity in his own right. Moore's daughter Scout told Harper's Bazaar that she was quite comfortable with Kabbalah in the home because it represented only the last in a long line of conversions. "She has always moved from religion to religion, with different stages of her life."

What Kabbalah and Scientology offer that self-help doesn't, however, is some comfort in the face of the yawning emptiness of the cosmos. Even the biggest stars will die, or perhaps not. In an article on Kabbalah in Salon magazine, journalist Daphne Merkin - who was raised as an Orthodox Jew - reports how she discussed the cult with Mystic Madge in an interview for a glossy magazine occasioned by the release of Confessions on a Dance Floor. She and Guy Ritchie were taking Hebrew lessons at the time and she had been renamed, at least for devotional purposes, Esther. She no longer believed in death, she told Merkin, but in a concept of reincarnation taught at the Kabbalah Centre.

Reincarnation has no place in Jewish theology, but Kabbalah's "reconciliation of science and spirituality, of the Garden of Eden and string theory", as Madonna put it, follows its own precepts. " 'The thought of eternal life appeals to me'," she told me, as though she were trying on a new outfit in front of a mirror," Merkin wrote. "'I don't think people's energy just disappears.'

"When I asked her why she hadn't stuck with Catholicism, which incorporates belief in an afterlife, she snapped in reply: 'There's nothing consoling about being Catholic. They're all just laws and prohibitions. They don't help me negotiate the world.' ''

The caricature of celebrity-friendly religions, of course, is that they are long on consolation and short on anything else, such as uncongenial moral codes or an actual God whose own celebrity, celeb-watching snarks suggest, might occasionally overshadow the star's own. This may be part of the appeal of Buddhism, however vaguely understood it may be by many Westerners who flirt with it. Anyone can latch on to ideas of individual spiritual growth and the pursuit of physical and mental well-being. After all, it sounds a lot like therapy. Everyone in Hollywood understands that.

Celebrity Buddhists accordingly abound: Oliver Stone, Keanu Reeves, Orlando Bloom, Uma Thurman, Tina Turner and Sharon Stone are among the many who have declared themselves, more or less convincingly, to be fans of shedding all desire. Naomi Watts said after making The Painted Veil that she was "drawn" to Buddhism and was, in an odd counterpoint to the red thread brigade, wearing "Buddhist beads" around her wrist.

Richard Gere, raised a Methodist, is perhaps Hollywood's best-known Buddhist, adhering to a disciplined schedule of meditation that does not, in fact, suggest his religious choice is an easy option. In the process he has also committed himself to the Tibetan cause, visiting the Dalai Lama in northern India several times a year and lobbying ceaselessly at home on his behalf. The story of his conversion is that he tried meditation for the first time back in the mid-'70s, when he had retired to bed in depression after being fired as lead actor in The Lords of Flatbush.

"Back then, doubts were eating away at me," Gere said later. "And Buddhism as a religion seemed like the therapeutic way to deal with that ... For the first time, I felt I had really found myself." As an actor who embodied a certain kind of sexualised narcissism peculiar to movies, he could see a way of "cutting himself down to size", as Der Spiegel put it in a long profile centred on his choice of faith. "Gere is a narcissist seeking to overcome his infatuation with his own image."

More recent Hollywood conversions have included some that are almost archaically conventional. The days when people had to change religion to match their partner's might have been thought to be over, but Isla Fisher has spent years on the preliminary studies required for Jewish conversion in order to marry Sacha Baron Cohen. They have had a child in the meantime. Just last week it was reported that Leonardo diCaprio will reportedly undertake the same arduous training to marry his Israeli girlfriend.

And last year, having long since dropped out of Kabbalah via Alcoholics Anonymous, Lindsay Lohan posted her intention to convert to Judaism. Her plan, by contrast, is pure Hollywood. Her girlfriend Samantha Ronson is Jewish and Lohan said that she had become close to her family and was attracted to their beliefs. They, too, are said to be considering marriage in a state that will permit it. But she is still only 22, so has time for a few changes of heart yet.

Despite the absurdities of celebrities in search of a god effect - it can't be too substantial, but should be spectacular - any of us can understand the urge to embrace the momentarily transcendent. It's that sense of missing something that makes Christmas-and-Easter churchgoers wish they did this more often, or puts us in awe of Uluru or a sunny morning, or allows us to take pleasure in traditional ritual that means little to us simply because preceding generations have said the same words and made the same gestures in company with their fellow human beings. The most determined non-believer can see what a church or equivalent offers in our world.

But in the middle of the movie industry, with its naked adulation of success and money, its emphasis on surface gloss and a competitive ethos that some say makes everyone else implicitly untrustworthy, the longing for a refuge from "the infectious malaise of secular life", as Daphne Merkin puts it, must be proportionately greater. And if it comes with "an up-to-the-microsecond sense of branding" and excellent merchandise, so much the better. After all, however much those celebrities might be looking for a haven, they're still in Hollywood.

Newsweek names the top shuls in America - the 25 best Jewish synagogues (and the 50 top rabbis)

Sure to stir some controversy. Newsweek names "America’s 25 Most Vibrant Congregations" -- based on the unscientific opinions of Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman and CEO Michael Lynton, News Corp. executive vice president Gary Ginsberg and JTN Productions CEO Jay Sanderson. They say the list is based "on the following criteria:"

• Social and Community Engagement
• Growth of Membership
• Outreach to Young People
• Diversity of Programming
• Programmatic Innovation
• Dynamism of Religious Services
• Success of the Rabbi
  

No New Jersey synagogues on the list.

They also name the best 50 rabbis in the companion articles:

• 50 Influential Rabbis
• Lisa Miller, "Is Your Rabbi Hot Or Not?."

[P.S.: Two NJ Orthodox rabbis without synagogues on that list. We don't know why Obama's rabbi, Capers Funnye from Chicago is not on it.]

The Congregations
Beth Elohim, Wellesley, Mass.
Beth Elohim draws its 900 very diverse congregants from more than 30 Greater Boston towns and focuses on social action and education.
Temple Israel, Boston
New England's largest Reform congregation continues to grow and expand.
Kehilat Hadar, New York
One of the most dynamic traditional congregations in America, with an innovative companion yeshiva, Mechon Hadar.
Central Synagogue, New York
Central Synagogue has long been one of the leading synagogues in New York and America, but its lofty position has not stopped it from evolving to meet the changing times.
B'nai Jeshurun, New York
From its beginning, Congregation B'nai Jeshrun has been at the forefront of spiritual and communal innovation.
Temple Israel, White Plains, N.Y.
Temple Israel is committed to diverse learning opportunities for congregants of all backgrounds and ages.
Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, Bronx, N.Y.
An Orthodox synagogue committed to bringing spirituality to the entire community.
Congregation Beth Elohim, Brooklyn, N.Y.
A 148-year-old synagogue quickly adapting to Brooklyn's exciting, young population.
Germantown Jewish Centre, Philadelphia
A model for pluralistic and egalitarian worship and community.
Temple Micah, Washington, D.C.
Puts a premium on an individual's Jewish journey, and its programming reflects that unique approach.
Sixth and I Historic Synagogue, Washington, D.C.
Sixth and I Synagogue focuses on unaffiliated Jews, and its nondenominational, nonmembership approach is making an impact in Washington.
The Shul, Miami
"One of the country's most unorthodox Orthodox synagogues," reaching out to Miami's diverse Jewish population, including Sephardic Jews.
The Temple, Atlanta
Atlanta's oldest and most progressive synagogue.
Temple Emanu-El, Dallas
Founded in 1875, Temple Emanu-El was the first synagogue in North Texas, and its pioneering spirit continues to place it at the forefront of Jewish life.
Central Reform Congregations, St. Louis
St. Louis's only congregation strives to capture the attention and the involvement of its diverse community.
Beth Jacob Congregation, St. Paul, Minn.
Beth Jacob Congregation has made Shabbat the focus of its programming.
Anshe Sholom B'nai Israel, Chicago
One of America's most innovative Modern Orthodox synagogues.
IKAR, Los Angeles
A leader in reaching young Jews with its integrated approach to social action and spiritual growth.
B'nai David Judea, Los Angeles
An Orthodox congregation that has been a leader in enabling religious women to lead tefilah and read from the Torah.
Sinai Temple, Los Angeles
A Conservative congregation that embraces study and tradition while being open to new methods and ideas.
Valley Beth Shalom, Encino, Calif.
Valley Beth Shalom continues to be one of America's most relevant and community-minded synagogues.
Congregation Emanu-El, San Francisco
San Francisco's leading house of worship, reaching an eclectic community.
Congregation Beth Am, Palo Alto, Calif.
A Bay Area congregation committed to bringing Reform Judaism into congregants' lives outside the sanctuary.
Kavana Cooperative, Seattle
A spiritual cooperative, enabling all its congregants to be leaders as well as participants.

Is Rabbi Capers Funnye Jewish?

Obviously, you say, Rabbi Capers Funnye is a Jew. But not so fast.

Funnye is labeled in the title of the Times Magazine's story as "Obama's Rabbi." As you read the fascinating story by Zev Chafets you get a sense of the way in which the black Jewish community that he serves evolved, how its members' identities as authentic Jews have been problematic and how the Rabbi himself underwent a conversion to remove all doubt about his bona fides as a Jew. This account leaves room for much debate to follow about the contours of the definition of who is a Jew in the American community.

Obama's Rabbi
By ZEV CHAFETS

Rabbi Capers Funnye celebrated Martin Luther King Day this year in New York City at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, a mainstream Reform congregation, in the company of about 700 fellow Jews — many of them black. The organizers of the event had reached out to four of New York’s Black Jewish synagogues in the hope of promoting Jewish diversity, and they weren’t disappointed. African-American Jews, largely from Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens, many of whom had never been in a predominantly white synagogue, made up about a quarter of the audience. Most of the visiting women wore traditional African garb; the men stood out because, though it was a secular occasion, most kept their heads covered. But even with your eyes closed you could tell who was who: the black Jews and the white Jews clapped to the music on different beats.

Funnye, the chief rabbi of the Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Chicago, one of the largest black synagogues in America, was a featured speaker that night...more...

A video of 40 lashes - ancient flogging in modern times from the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley

When studying the bible and Talmud I occasionally mused, If only we could go back in time and actually see the past.

But we can. You ask, By what magic can we go back 4000 years in time?

How is this possible to witness the act of ancient Biblical flogging?

Thanks to this source, here is it - pre-modern society captured on a cell phone video.

WSJ: Rabbi Bleich and Professor Sarna Dispute the Essence of the Blessing of the Sun

We've been thinking... Did the Beatles have this blessing in mind when they wrote their song?

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it's all right
Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right

Anyway, we love Talmudic disputes - especially when they take place in the Wall Street Journal.

While this one is not fully articulated (they rarely are to start with), you can appreciate the differing views of the rabbi and the professor regarding a simple old blessing. It's nicely presented in the article, "Love the Earth? Bless the Sun," By JULIE WIENER, concluding,

"There is no question that our relationship to the physical world and the sun is different than it was 28 years ago, let alone 2,000 years ago," says Nigel Savage, whose Jewish environmental group, Hazon, is organizing a sunrise ceremony on the roof of the Jewish Community Center in Manhattan. The Hazon event will also officially launch the Jewish Coalition for a Sustainable Upper West Side, a campaign pushing for more pedestrian- and bike-friendly policies in the neighborhood.

For Mr. Savage and other Jewish environmental activists, it makes sense to connect "blessing the sun with the power of the sun and with some understanding of how the sun's rays are affecting the planet in the 21st century."

The Teva Learning Center, a group that teaches about Judaism and the environment at Jewish day schools, summer camps and Hebrew schools, has dispatched a special "Birchat HaChama" bus. Running solely on reused vegetable oil, the bus has been visiting synagogues and Jewish community centers along the East Coast and in Ohio, sharing information not just about the sun blessing but also about a variety of environmentally friendly technologies, such as solar-powered ovens....

All of this is "a little bemusing" to Rabbi J. David Bleich, a Yeshiva University Talmud professor whose scholarly tome "Bircas HaChammah" was published in 1981 and re-released this year by the Orthodox Jewish publishing company ArtScroll Mesorah. According to Rabbi Bleich, environmental concerns are "issues in and of themselves and are totally unrelated to the blessing of the sun." He sees the blessing as an occasion to acknowledge the wonder of God's creations, not a political statement. "I suppose you can connect anything," he says. "You can draw dots and lines; you don't have to be logical."

But Brandeis's Mr. Sarna points out that the environmentalist remaking of the sun blessing mirrors the transformation over the past few decades of Tu b'Shvat, the Jewish "birthday of the trees," from a Zionist holiday to a sort of Jewish Earth Day. "Some will be unhappy with that, and others will understand that's a process as old as ritual itself," Mr. Sarna says. "When one looks at Jewish history, one finds there are rituals and practices that one generation discarded suddenly take on wonderful significance for a new generation."...more...