News

Our board recently returned from a trip to Israel. After an amazing week exploring the country, Vice President Jeremy Fielding shared his thoughts on the incredible experience.

Just this past week, Rabbi Lorge and Rabbi Rosenthal returned from leading a congregational trip to Israel. The group, made up of Central families, explored both the historical and religious significance of the beautiful country. From the old stones of Jerusalem to the mystical city of Tsfat, they left no stone unturned as they discovered the wonder of Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel.

Today, we mourn the death of the last of Israel's founding fathers, Shimon Peres. Mr. Peres died Wednesday morning in Israel, after having suffered a stroke earlier this month. He was 93 years old.

Bill Gates recently joined 2,000 attendees at Microsoft Israel's Think Next event and declared: "Israeli technology is improving the world." But herein lies the rub: no one knows it. The U.S. media focuses mostly on the political Israel and not on Israeli citizens who work quietly each day to solve some of the world’s biggest problems.

Untold News was founded in 2010 to change all that.

Sending Shabbat greetings from Israel where I am proud to represent our community at the annual conference of Reform rabbis, hosted by the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

Central Synagogue is proud to be co-sponsoring a six-part speaker series on the topic of Jewish values and the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The series attempts to rectify the internal Jewish communal challenges related to talking about the conflict by naming and working through the various values narratives that animate different political views about the conflict. Together with the unpacking of the complex meanings of peace in Jewish tradition, this series seeks to make the participants more self-aware of the values makeup of their own political views, and attempts to create a more stable pluralism in Jewish life in how we talk about this most divisive issue.

As Rabbi Buchdahl has so eloquently and passionately discussed, engaging more substantively with Israel is a congregational priority. Nothing brings Israel to life more vividly than visiting. We have a fabulous trip planned for this year.

The Reform Jewish Movement was the clear winner in the critical World Zionist Congress election, according to results released today.

The ARZA slate, representing the Reform Movement and including Central Synagogue Senior Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, secured 56 seats out of a possible 145, winning nearly 40 percent of the votes cast in the United States – more than the amount of the next two slates combined.

Elections in Israel are approaching in March. But this year, every Jew in the world can cast a vote to influence the life of Israel. Approximately every five years, the World Zionist Congress (WZC) runs an election and every Jew in the world is allowed to make their vote count. Join me today in helping support Reform values, women’s rights, and religious pluralism by voting for ARZA, the Reform Jewish platform, in the WZC election that begins today.