In The News - Page 3
Sept. 18, 2009
Allegations of Grave Desecration at Eden Memorial Park
By Abbie Boudreau
"BOUDREAU: And Wolf, we have new development tonight. The Board of Rabbis of Southern California says it's, "concerned and troubled by the allegations being made against Eden Memorial." The group says that issue affects the entire Jewish community, and of course tonight is Rosh Hashanah -- the start of the Jewish High Holy Days -- Wolf."
July 12, 2009
Homeless Get Help, One Family at a Time
By Troy Anderson
During a recent luncheon sponsored by the Board of Rabbis of Southern California and Fuller Theological Seminary, rabbis, pastors, priests and professors talked about ways the faith community could come together to care for those marginalized by society.
"Both the Jewish tradition and the Christian tradition believe that the community has to come together to the aid of the vulnerable," said Rabbi Elliott Dorff, a speaker at the luncheon and the rector and distinguished professor in philosophy at the American Jewish University.
June 22, 2009
By David Haldane
The economy has hit the rabbinate, with many new and veteran rabbis looking for work.
April 7, 2009
Synagogues Go 'Green' For Passover
For this and other stories about the Board of Rabbis and the South Coast Air Quality Management District's Birkat HaHammah program, click here.
April 15, 2009
Leading Combatant in Gay Marriage Fight To Head Southern California Rabbis
By Rebecca Spence
Los Angeles -- When Denise Eger assumes the leadership of this region's local rabbinic association, she'll be making history -- twice over.
On May 11, Eger will become not only the first woman to lead the Board of Rabbis of Southern California -- one of the nation's largest rabbinic boards -- but also the board's first openly gay or lesbian president.
April, 2009
Let All Who Are Not Hungry, Come and Act
By Adynna Swarz
More than 120 rabbis, congregational leaders, Jewish community professionals, and individuals from hunger-related agencies and programs gathered at the Federation on March 24, where they discussed issues, ideas, and future steps towards combating the issue of hunger in Los Angeles.
...
In hosting the summit, the Federation partnered with The Board of Rabbis of Southern California and MAZON, with support from Jewish Vocational Service, Jewish Family Service, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the Orthodox Union, and the Union for Reform Judaism.
November 26, 2008
Obama's cousin-in-law Rabbi Capers Funnye battles to open the gates of Judaism
By Julie G. Fax
Rabbi Capers C. Funnye Jr. is a kippah-wearing black rabbi who leads a multiethnic congregation in Chicago.
...
"I have to have one pair of glasses for all Jews and not see that because Jews are of a different ethnicity, that makes a difference in my approach to them," Funnye said. "I am working for the day that Jews are simply Jews."
That message resonated with the 35 rabbis gathered at Valley Beth Shalom in Encino for a daylong seminar of the Sandra Caplan Community Bet Din of Southern California, sponsored jointly with the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.
...
"The remarkable thing about Los Angeles is we have colleagues who like each other, respect each other and are willing to talk to each other," said Rabbi Stewart Vogel, president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, an interdenominational umbrella group. "When you can engage in dialogue, anything can happen. We can get past stereotypes and prejudices, and we can work together to create the Jewish community we want."
September 27, 2008
California Briefing: Southern California rabbi board opposes gay marriage ban
By Duke Helfand
Southern California's largest collection of rabbis voted overwhelmingly this week to oppose Proposition 8, the proposed amendment to the California Constitution that would define marriage as between only a man and a woman.
Leaders of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California -- with representatives from the Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements -- said they wanted to protect the civil rights of gay and lesbian couples.
August 6, 2008
The High Cost of Dying and Planning Ahead
By Jane Ullman
"You have to be realistic. We happen to live in an area where even a small piece of real estate is expensive," said Mark Hyman, senior rabbi at Tikvat Jacob in Manhattan Beach, who also serves as chair of the Funeral Practices Committee of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.
June 3, 2008
After Settling Kosher Food Suit, California Prisons Get Influx of Jewish Chaplains
By Rebecca Spence
Mendel Slavin went to work as a chaplain in a San Diego prison in 2006. A Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic rabbi from the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, he was one of about a dozen Jewish chaplains serving California's fractional Jewish inmate population at the time. But in the two years since then, that number has literally doubled.
April 25, 2008
By Bishop Mary Ann Swenson and Dr. Nur Amersi
Bishop Swenson and Dr. Amersi were part of the Los Angeles Religious Leaders Interfaith Mission to Rome & Jerusalem in January 2008.
March 27, 2008
Knesset Members To Meet With Mainline Protestants
By Rebecca Spence
In the wake of recent strains between Jewish leaders and the leaders of America�s mainline Protestant churches, the Board of Rabbis of Southern California is convening a luncheon with top interfaith leaders and three Israeli Knesset members.
Full story here. Fourth item down.
April 7, 2008
Knesset contingent teaches a crash course in Israel 101
By Tom Tugend
...Most startling for those accustomed to daily headlines of Jewish-Arab confrontations was the presence of Nadia Hilou, a chic, blondish Arab Christian grandmother, representing the left-wing Labor Party.
She was flanked at an interfaith luncheon Friday, hosted by the Board of Rabbis, by Knesset members Shlomo Molla of the centrist Kadima Party, who was born in a small Ethiopian village, and Yoel Hasson, also of Kadima, whose grandfather came from Tunisia.
February 7, 2008
Los Angeles area interfaith clergy visit Rome, Israel
By Orit Arfa
Jewish, Christian and Muslim representatives of the Religious Leaders of Los Angeles Mission to Rome and Jerusalem pause in remembrance of Holocaust vicitms in the Valley of the Communities at Yad Vashem.
Late last month, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 27 delegates of a weeklong interfaith mission from greater Los Angeles gathered in a circle at Yad Vashem's Valley of Communities, a monument carved out of bedrock to honor Jewish communities obliterated in the Holocaust. The cold morning foreshadowed the upcoming Jerusalem snowstorm, and the leaders representing Jewish, Catholic, Protestant and Muslim denominations warmed one another with words of conciliation and prayer, countering the chilly air and the chilling images of Jewish genocide they had seen a few moments earlier at the Yad Vashem museum.
...
"We are in parallel universes. This trip was designed to bring those universes together," said Rabbi Mark Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, who co-led the mission with Edward W. Clark, bishop of Our Lady of the Angels Region, Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Diamond led an interfaith mission to Israel two years earlier under the auspices of the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders, and this year organizers decided to complement the pilgrimage to Israel with one to the Vatican. "Both in the Vatican and here in Israel we learned there is no substitute to learning nuance and complexities of issues than to travel to these places and meet with the leaders."
February 2, 2008
Religious leaders join hands to take on worldwide woes
By K. Connie Kang
Religious leaders should lead the way in solving the world's persistent problems, such as hunger, disease and violence, by reaching out to -- and working with -- people of other faiths, Los Angeles area Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders say.
"It is increasingly clear to some of us that the world's problems can't be solved simply politically," said the Rev. Jerry Campbell, president of Claremont School of Theology, after returning this week from a nine-day study trip to Rome, the Vatican and Jerusalem.
Campbell traveled as a member of the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders, and the trip was designed to promote understanding and appreciation of the complexity of the Middle East. It was the second such trip for the council and was co-sponsored by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.
March 2008
Religious Leaders Mission Creates Unique Bond Between Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Participants
Dressed in white t-shirts and waving colorful flags from different countries, the Bialik-Rogozin school choir sang about their life experience as children of 28 different nations learning together in Tel Aviv.
It was the last day of the Religious Leaders Mission to Rome and Jerusalem, although this final morning was being spent in Tel Aviv. The first stop at the Bialik-Rogozin School -- a melting pot of 720 students ranging in age from kindergarten through 12th grade -- was a moving experience for the 23 mission participants. The school includes a mix of Jews, Muslims and Christians, including children of foreign workers and new immigrants, and has been a lesson in acceptance and support. Like the group on this mission, the Bialik-Rogozin School is working to create an active, interfaith community.
Visiting the school "was so moving and poignant," remarked Rabbi Mark Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, and one of the co-leaders of the mission. "We're proud of the work that the Federation does and it was so important to end the trip seeing children in this kind of situation. There's no substitute for visiting and meeting with people."
To read the mission participants' reflections from the trip, click here.
October 19, 2007
Interfaith panel wrestles with troubling texts:
Will the real 'chosen' please rise?
By Amy Klein
"We learn who we are through struggling with text," said Rabbi Mark S. Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California. "We must learn from the scars, from the blemishes, from the ugly parts of our textual tradition, our history and our faith."
Scholars, clergy and seminarians gathered this week at the Luxe Hotel to discuss troubling passages and ideas in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and ways of understanding them in modern times, as part of "Troubling Traditions: Wrestling With Problem Passages," a conference co-sponsored by the Board of Rabbis of Southern California and the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding of Sacred Heart University.
October 20, 2007
By K. Connie Kang
Speaking with mutual respect and sensitivity, prominent Christian, Jewish and Muslim scholars and clergy from around the country met in Los Angeles this week to "wrestle" with what one rabbi described as the "dark side" of the three faith traditions.
...
Rabbi Mark S. Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, which co-sponsored the event with Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn., said all people of faith need to "take ownership of their most difficult texts, wrestle with them -- not run away from them -- but confront them, where appropriate, set them in their proper historical context.
"After wrestling, I hope people can understand these texts in the appropriate contexts and realize that not all of them, but many of them, are bound by conditions of social milieu, of culture, of historical context."