Blog Filtered | Union for Reform Judaism

HUC President Andrew Rehfeld and NY Rabbinical and Ordination Class of 2021

Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion

Ordination and Achieving the Highest Ethical Conduct

Andrew Rehfeld, Ph.D.

May 13, 2021

This month we celebrate the graduations and ordinations of a new class of our Jewish future: rabbis, cantors, educators, and non-profit leaders, newly ready to take on the challenges of the 21st century and foster our communities to be vital centers of learning, engagement, and identity building.

Strengthening Congregations

Dear Synagogue Leaders: Go Back Better (to In-Person)

Rabbi Paul Kipnes

May 6, 2021

Dear Synagogue Leaders,

We keepers of the flame
Of Jewish communal living

Know --
If we haven’t already done so
That the time to go back
Is arriving soon.

We want to go back to in-person worship
We want to go back to in-person meetings
We want to go back to

Strengthening Congregations

Don’t Call it Hybrid: Multi-Access is the Future for Jewish Communities

Cantor Rosalie Will

Rabbi Esther L. Lederman

Rabbi Leora Kaye

May 5, 2021

Not surprisingly over the past number of months, the word “hybrid” has become popularized to refer to this new world we have entered. We want to make an argument for a new, and more precise term that some congregations have started to use: multi-access.

Strengthening Congregations

A Community, Not a Commodity

Rabbi Jennifer Jaech

April 27, 2021

The first wedding at which I officiated as a newly ordained rabbi was on the island of Maui. The couple planned their ceremony in a location that rarely received significant rainfall.

Israeli flags strung up across a blue sky

Yom HaShoah

The Bitter and the Sweet: Observing Yom HaZikaron and Yom HaAtzmaut This Year

Rabbi Rick Jacobs

April 6, 2021

We at the URJ are working with you, our congregations, to instill a love of Israel, make it central to the identity of Reform Jews, and advance efforts toward ensuring that it is a nation of equality, tolerance, pluralism, and justice.

Young girl wearing googles while watching a Zoom screen surrounded by materials for conducting a science experiment

Jewish Values

Creators, Thinkers, and Inventors: STEM in our Synagogue Learning Community

Alison Weikel

Jacob Paikoff

April 2, 2021

As the STEM educator and director of education, respectively, at Temple Shir Tikva in Wayland, MA, we’re sharing reflections on introducing STEM to Jewish learners in our building pre-COVID and in our online learning community.

Strengthening Congregations

Pandemic Passover, Take Two: The Long Journey through the Wilderness

Rabbi Rick Jacobs

March 2, 2021

Last Passover began the urgent quest to reinvent much of Jewish life, highlighting that some of the ways we “do” Judaism needed to be updated. This year has been a powerful catalyst to shifts in how we perform our holy work.

Line of wooden pegs shaped like people against a blue background with one peg moving upward against a yellow arrow as if to signify leadership

Leadership Development

This is the Very Best Way to Start Your Term as Congregational President

Amy Asin

March 1, 2021

This year's conference will cover topics that address the need to balance maintaining a strong congregation for today while leading change for the future, plus the dilemma of dealing with the urgency of the pandemic and long-term challenges to congregations.

Doctor vaccinating a young woman in the arm while both wear masks

Strengthening Congregations

Vaccinating the Most Vulnerable Requires Proactive Congregational Effort

Rabbi Fred Guttman

Robert Wineburg

February 18, 2021

Judaism’s foremost physician made clear that providing healthcare to the community is fundamentally connected to the spiritual and moral health of society. Nine centuries later, with COVID-19 raging all around us, the urgent relevance of the Rambam’s words could not be clearer.

White railing with an EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY sign in red

COVID-19

6 Things You Should be Doing to Improve Your Congregation’s Security

Amy Asin

February 15, 2021

Tthere are critical tasks to be done to ensure congregational safety and security both now and as we reopen. The results of the URJ’s synagogue security survey points to six things you should be doing to make sure you're prepared.

Related Blog Posts on Education, Strengthening Congregations, and Jewish Values