Should Jews first take care of our own, or first serve the needs of society as a whole?Read More
This month, Americans will sift through the countless solicitations in our mail and e-mail in order to decide where to give donations before the end-of-year tax-deduction deadline. Americans are often said to be the most generous people in the world, based on the percentage of the national gross domestic product that goes toward charitable causes. That said, the average American only gives away between 2% and 4% of his or her income.Read More
As a rabbi who has devoted her career to social and economic justice, I am often asked whether I work on “Jewish issues.” The question puzzles me: Are Jewish issues only those that concern primarily the Jewish community, such as the cost of day school, the survival of the State of Israel and housing for the Jewish elderly? Some say that we ought to understand Jewish issues more broadly to include funding for public schools, which serve Jewish and non-Jewish students; separation of church and state, or affordable housing for all senior citizens. Still others claim that Jewish issues include labor struggles, criminal justice and housing security, since Jewish law has much to say on all these areas. Why not take it further? Perhaps we also should define as Jewish issues the top priorities of the African-American, Latino, Muslim and other minority communities, in the hope that likewise they will prioritize our issues as theirs.Read More
Congress seems set to raise the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour. The House approved a minimum-wage hike in late January, and the Senate appears poised to follow suit. The Jewish community has stepped up to advocate for the proposed $2.10 minimum-wage increase, the first in almost 10 years. The Jewish Funds for Justice and the Religious Action Center of the Union for Reform Judaism collected signatures from more than 450 rabbis and rabbinical students — among them the leaders of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements — calling on Congress to pass this bill. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, with the support of dozens of local and national groups, has made passage of the minimum-wage bill a policy priority. Rabbis in cities across the country are delivering sermons on the topic.Read More
As we move forward into the New Year, one thing that hasn’t changed along with our calendars is the fact that many municipal governments remain in a state of fiscal crisis.Desperate for new ways of raising revenue, cities are increasingly looking at legalized gambling as an attractive option for shoring up municipal coffers. In theRead More
