Shma: Taube Foundation New Visions

Is Pluralism a Jewish Value?
Sharon Cohen Anisfeld
Pluralism is one of those words. You never know what kind of a reaction it will inspire. From some people, it evokes hostility and discomfort, from others, a yawn.
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God’s Majesty and Our Human Dignity
Sara Paasche Orlow
Most American Jews lack a coherent theological system. What is God? What does God have to do with us? And how does our view of God influence our behavior?
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Visions for the Future of Conservative Judaism
Gordon Tucker
My years as a rabbinical student at Jewish Theological Seminary (1971-1975) coincided, as they did for so many of my contemporaries, with a "critical awakening," by which I mean a first serious encounter with what it means to understand religion historically.
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Hidden in a Holiday
Jan R. Uhrbach
A verse from Psalm 81 is featured prominently in the Rosh Hashanah evening service: Tiku bahodesh shofar, bakeseh l’yom chageinu, “Sound the shofar on the new moon, in the time appointed for our festival day.”
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Mirrors and Waves J.J. Goldberg
PRACTICING THE CRAFT of journalism – the pure, old-fashioned news-gathering kind – is a lonely way of life. Jewish journalism is doubly so, or tenfold. If the media seem less compelling than they should be or used to be, that's the biggest reason.
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Vision Byte Books by Paula Hyman
ENCYCLOPEDIAS HAVE existed for more than 2,000 years in order to make available a summary of extant knowledge. The Encyclopedia Britannica, the largest and oldest in the English language, was first published in 1768 and has been followed by many competitors. Jews came relatively late to the production of encyclopedias.....
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How to Connect Two Nouns
by Deborah Dash Moore
SIXTY YEARS AGO, as World War II raged and Nazi Germany did its best to murder the remaining remnant of European Jews, Mordecai Kaplan, radical thinker, rebellious Orthodox rabbi, and founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, articulated what he considered vital premises for Judaism to flourish in America. He suggested new forms of oneness that transcended national boundaries, encouraging Jews to identify not only with the people Israel but also the land, Hebrew language, and culture....
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Re-imagining a Mitzvah Practice
by Rachel Cowan
The Me'or Eynaim (Rabbi Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl), a Hasidic master who lived in the Ukraine from 1730 - 1797, taught: Commandment, after all is called mitzvah because it joins together (mitzvah/ tzavtah ) the part of God that dwells within the person with the infinite God beyond....
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Hope, Values, and the Jewish Future
by Yosef I. Abramowitz
A nearly full moon shimmers, eerily lighting the tombs of David and Paula Ben Gurion; it is 1:30 a.m. in Sde Boker. I raise my flimsy Israeli plastic cup in a silent toast, inhale the biblical air, and sip the remaining Johnny Walker.
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Restructuring the Partnership
by Judith Stern Peck
THE MISSION, governance, and work of today's Jewish institutions and leadership should reflect a global sensitivity and diversity based on Jewish values that have sustained us over thousands of years:
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Scholarship, Literature and the Imagination
by Steven J. Zipperstein
THE TERM "ACADEMIC PROSE," much like those stock phrases used, to good effect, by Borsht Belt comedians of the past, is cast about to inspire a good, hearty laugh at something that is both impenetrable and irrelevant. Read More...


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