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The Jewish Condition: Essays on Contemporary Judaism Honoring Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, edited by Aron Hirt-Manheimer, URJ Press
Book Review
Perhaps no modern liberal Jewish thinker has challenged, enlightened,
enlivened, infuriated, vexed, and loved the Jewish people more
than Rabbi Alexander Schindler. For thirty four years Schindler
guided the Reform movement, twenty-two of them as President of
the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the umbrella organization
of millions of reform Jews and hundreds of Reform synagogues.
Schindler initiated the controversial stand of patrilineal descent,
whereby the child of a Jewish father (but not Jewish mother) is
counted as a Jew in reform. He was the first to cry out for outreach
to the unaffiliated and what he called "the unchurched"- non-Jews
who may be drawn into conversion to Judaism. He championed for
the religious equality of women and gays long before it was politically
correct. He worked tirelessly for inter-religious dialogue, and
inter-Jewish dialogue. When he died just recently, it was not
only a shock but also a great loss to the Jewish people.
This book has dozens of insightful essays on the contemporary
Jewish condition, its overarching issues, its future. The array
of authors and topics is impressive. Julius Lester, author of
Lovesong and the famous black son of a Baptist minister turned
Jew, writes a wonderful piece on Blacks, Jews, and Farrakhan.
Rabbi Jack Stern has a beautiful article on Jewish Ethics in the
Daily Life of a Jew; Rachel Adler on Women and Tradition; and
Rabbi Gunther Plaut on the Limits of Reform Judaism. These are
just a few of my favorites in a book well worth reading, by people
we ought to be listening to. This is not just a book for Reform
Jews, or for people interested in Reform Judaism. This is a book
for all Jews who live in the modern world and who care about the
Jewish condition.
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