(photo: AP/Jose Luis Magana) By all accounts, the Democratic Party is closing ranks at lighting speed. As of this writing, Vice-President Harris now has more than enough delegates t… Read More

Israel killed at least 90 people in Al-Mawasi in several airstrikes on an area the military had designated as a “safe zone.” Here a child reacts as bodies are salvaged from the s… Read More

Here are my remarks from, “Gaza: Religion, Politics and Solidarity,” a program sponsored by Bright Stars of Bethlehem on May 5, held at the First Presbyterian Church in Eva… Read More

left to right: Sheikh Hassan Ali, Tarek Khalil, Rev. Michael Wolff, Rev. Anna Piela, Maaria Mozaffar, Deena Habbal, Rep. Delia Ramirez, Rabbi Brant Rosen, and Imam Hassan Aly. M… Read More

Early yesterday morning, the Chicago Police Department raided and destroyed the student encampment at DePaul University. The DePaul Liberation Zone was the last remaining student encampm… Read More

Cross-posted with The Nation In 2017, I spent several days in Gaza as a staff person for the American Friends Service Committee. Although I took away many powerful and vivid memories… Read More

(AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov) From my weekly email to Tzedek Chicago members: So many people have told me that they are not sure how – or even if – they will celebrate Passover… Read More

Last Sunday, this full-page ad appeared in the Chicago Tribune: a hate-filled diatribe against Mayor Brandon Johnson for his support of the recent city council ceasefire resolution. Here it… Read More

 (Photo by Axel Koester/Los Angeles Daily News)It’s safe to day that International Holocaust Remembrance Day will arrive tomorrow at a deeply fraught moment for the Jewish communi… Read More

Guest Post by Maya Schenwar Remarks by Maya Schenwar, from last night’s Tu B’shvat gathering sponsored by Tzedek Chicago and the Jewish Fast for Gaza. (Maya is director of th… Read More

(Photo: EFE) The introduction to the book of Exodus, which we begin reading this Shabbat, has never resonated so deeply or so powerfully for me as it does very moment. We’re all… Read More

Last week, the board of my congregation, Tzedek Chicago released this statement in repsonse to Israel’s ongoing military assault in Gaza. Although it is addressed to all people of… Read More

Here are the remarks, below, that I delivered at Chicago City Hall yesterday at a meeting of the Committee on Health and Human Relations as it considered an endorsement of UN Resolution 377… Read More

(photo: Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images)From my weekly email to Tzedek Chicago members: As we well know, there have been, in recent years, increasingly vociferous calls … Read More

photo: Washington 7 NewsFrom my weekly email to Tzedek Chicago members: According to Jewish law, it is forbidden to mourn on Shabbat: between sundown on Friday and sundown on Sa… Read More

photo: Hassan Eslaiah / APAs Israel intensifies its horrific military assault on Gaza – at current count, over 8,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 3,000 children &ndash… Read More

As of this writing, Israel has killed over 7,000 Palestinians in Gaza – almost 3,000 of whom are children. (According to Defense for Children International – Palestine, almos… Read More

When I heard the initial reports of Hamas’ attacks on Israel this past Saturday, I will be completely honest – my first reaction was “good for them.” Israel had been… Read More

phot: Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesAn op-ed version of this sermon was published in Truthout Jewish tradition teaches that words have a sacred power. In the very beginning of the Tora… Read More

(photo: Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)The High Holidays we observed in 2020 were like none we’d ever experienced before. We were in the midst of the COVID lockdown – an… Read More

(AP photo by Adam J. Dewey/NurPhoto)During the course of my rabbinical career, I’ve participated in a good number of interfaith dialogues. These were facilitated conversations, usually… Read More

From my weekly e-mail message to Tzedek Chicago members: In early August, a powerful letter with the title “The Elephant in the Room” was posted … Read More

photo: REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGESOn July 26, the eve of the Jewish festival of Tisha B’Av, I learned, along with the rest of the world, about the death of the great Irish singer/songwriter… Read More

From my weekly email message to Tzedek Chicago members: While the US Congress is undoubtedly a horrid dysfunctional mess of an institution, there have been occasional examples of genuin… Read More

For many, The Battle of Algiers” (1966) remains one of the truly great movies of modern times – and arguably the greatest anti-colonial film ever made. So much has been written… Read More

People carry their belongings on the street after the Israeli army’s withdrawal from the Jenin camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on July 5, 2023 [Ammar Awad/Reuters] From my we… Read More

photo: Isaam Rimawi/Anadolu Agency/GettyAs I write, I write we are receiving the horrifying news that Israel has launched its largest military operation in the occupied West Bank city of Jen… Read More

photo credit: Al JazeeraBack in 2009, when I was beginning to struggle openly with my relationship to Israel and Zionism, I wrote a blog post entitled “Why I Didn’t Celebrate Yom… Read More

Today marks the seventy eighth anniversary of a public Shabbat service held in liberated Dachau. While it is not a particularly well-known story, I believe it deserves to be commemorated and… Read More

NASSER ISHTAYEH / SOPA IMAGES / LIGHTROCKET VIA GETTY IMAGESCrossposted with Truthout On Passover, when we gather at the seder table to tell the story of the Exodus, we are reminded by th… Read More

Photo credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermidThis year, the Passover seder supplement I composed for Tzedek Chicago highlights the rise of anti-trans hate legislation throughout the US. In addition… Read More

For the past several days, Israeli politicians and military leaders have been publicly condemning last Sunday’s settler rampage in the West Bank village of Huwara. While the pogrom was… Read More

Photo by Jeenah Moon/Getty ImagesOver the past week or so, there was rising alarm over reports that some neo-Nazi groups had called for a “Day of Hate” against the American Jewis… Read More

Israelis protest against the new government’s proposed changes to the legal system, at Habima Square, Tel Aviv, January 28, 2023. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)For the past two months or s… Read More

Jenin, 1/26/2023 photo: Zain Jaafar/AFP/Getty ImagesFrom my weekly email to Tzedek Chicago members: As I write these words, it’s been reported that Israeli troops h… Read More

Art by Micah Bazant Last month, Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib spoke at an organizing seminar for Palestine solidarity activists. It was an in-house event, and it likely would not… Read More

If asked to pick one aspect of Jewish spiritual tradition that was the most important, the most valuable, the most genuinely impactful, it would be no contest. I’d answer without… Read More

Hayom Harat Olam – “Today is the birthday of the world.” It’s one of the signature lines of Rosh Hashanah, and it might be the best, most basic definition of the… Read More

Alaa Abdullah Riyad Qaddoum, age 5, killed by the Israeli military in Gaza City on August 5, 2022.In August 2014, the Jewish festival of Tisha B’Av arrived as Israel was waging a milit… Read More

Photo Credit: Very Good LightThe Jewish communal war on its own continues. Last week, I was saddened to read that Anna Rajagopal (they/her), a Jewish activist and senior at Rice Universit… Read More

“I Don’t Think I Can Celebrate this Holiday Anymore.” As a Jewish kid growing up in Los Angeles in the 1970s, I remember Yom Ha’atzmaut as the one day every ye… Read More

This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Behar, describes the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, the latter of which was an economic “rebooting” every 50th year when slaves… Read More

As I’ve written previously, this past March my synagogue Tzedek Chicago, following a long process of membership deliberation, announced our decision to articulate anti-Zionis… Read More

photo: John Cherry/Getty ImagesCross-posted with Truthout Keen observers have long noted that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is essentially a xenophobic Israel-advocacy or… Read More

An Open Letter to the Jewish Community from the Jewish Voice for Peace Rabbinical Council We, the Rabbinical Council of Jewish Voice for Peace, stand by the recent reports which use the t… Read More

photo: The Guardian When Amnesty International announced the release of a 278 page report entitled “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians,” you could already sense the… Read More

At our December 2021 meeting, board of my congregation, Tzedek Chicago, voted unanimously to recommend amending our core values statement to state explicitly that anti-Zionism (rather than … Read More

An op-ed version of this sermon was published in Truthout. I’d like to begin my remarks this Yom Kippur with a sacred refrain that has surely been uttered aloud by many of us ov… Read More

As many of you know, in January of 2020 it was my great honor to become Tzedek Chicago’s full-time rabbi. Among my first orders of business at the time was to find an office and a more… Read More

When I tried to think of the most appropriate saying I could offer you this Rosh Hashanah, I kept coming back to those famous Yiddish words from The Partisans Song: mir zaynen do … Read More

Photo credit: Paul Connors/Media News Group/Boston HeraldCross-posted with Jewschool. This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Ekev, contains the well-known commandment:  &l… Read More

Introduction In the spring of 2015, I helped to establish a Jewish congregation, Tzedek Chicago, motivated in part by a desire to create a religious space for those in the Jewish communit… Read More

I delivered this sermon yesterday at Second Unitarian Universalist Church of Chicago: When Revered Jason invited me to give the sermon to you today, I had some idea of what I wa… Read More

Volunteers from a nonprofit organization provide food supplies to people who line up ahead of Thanksgiving amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City on Novem… Read More

In the waning days of the Trump presidency, it’s become painfully clear that this administration is engaged in a political scorched earth campaign – i.e., doing everything it can… Read More

photo credit: Getty ImagesOn Rosh Hashanah I addressed the powerful feeling of uncertainty that pervades our lives and our world at this unprecedented moment. I want to return to this theme… Read More

photo: Thahitun Mariam/Bronx Mutual Aid NetworkOn Rosh Hashanah, Jewish tradition comes to tell us every new year that everything we’ve ever known is on the line. The zodiac sign for T… Read More

photo: Flash90 It’s fair to say that Peter Beinart’s recent article for Jewish Currents, in which he publicly announced his abandonment of the two-state solution, represents some… Read More

photo: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images The day of Israel’s plans to formally annex major West Bank settlement blocs has now come and gone. But while it didn’t actually happe… Read More

photo: Martha Raddatz Cross-posted with Jewish Voice for Peace As is the case for many I’m sure, the refrain, “which side are you on?” has been echoing through my heart and… Read More

On the surface, the Book of Ruth, the Biblical story traditionally read on the Jewish festival of Shavuot (which begins this evening), appears to be a simple parable about two women struggl… Read More

Remarks delivered by Maya Schenwar (editor of Truthout and author of “Locked Down, Locked Out” and the upcoming “Prison by Any Other Name”) at the Tzedek Chicago Pas… Read More

I’ve just finished “Fight for the Health of Your Community” – a new collection of Passover seder readings I wrote for members of my congregation. I’m happy to s… Read More

Here are the words of tribute that were offered by Rabbi Alissa Wise at Tzedek Chicago’s recent 5th anniversary celebration. Alissa is my dear friend and colleague and currently… Read More

Here, below, is my testimony from “The People’s Removal Trial of Donald Trump” – a street theater-style event that took place yesterday at Daley Plaza in Chicago. It… Read More

TOMERTU / SHUTTERSTOCK Cross-posted with Truthout And when the Maccabees overcame them and emerged victorious, they searched and found only one cruse of oil sufficient to light the menorah… Read More

photo credit: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta It’s certainly been a strange and surreal week for the American Jewish community. As is all too painfully well known by now, this past Tuesday, the… Read More

photo credit: AP/World Wide If you visit the website of The Great Synagogue, one of the largest and oldest Jewish congregations in Sydney, Australia, you’ll find the following stat… Read More

photo credit: ReutersOne of the signature moments on Rosh Hashanah is the sentence traditionally proclaimed after the shofar is sounded: “Hayom Harat Olam” (“Today is the b… Read More

Nur Shlapobersky / Never Again Action Observers have long suggested that two radically different visions of Judaism are currently unfolding in the contemporary world: one in Israel and the… Read More

(Crossposted with Newsweek) If ever there was a moment of clarity for us, it’s now. As we witness and grieve the carnage of two back-to-back mass shootings, we cannot afford to ignore… Read More

photo: Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor Last Tuesday, the House voted overwhelmingly to pass an anti-BDS bill with the strong support of progressive democrats (including “squad&r… Read More

Insider the Homestead Concentration Camp, Homestead, FL. (Cross-posted with Newsweek) Last December, I was arrested on the border in San Diego while standing with faith leaders to protest, a… Read More

(Photo: WTTW) Below: an excerpt from a eulogy I gave today at the funeral of celebrated Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman. As this Tribune obituary notes, “Stanley Tigerman (was) the… Read More

(photo: AP video) Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, created something of viral sensation last week when, during a speech in the Security Council, he dramatically brandished a Bible… Read More

oh lord deliver me from my people who wield their weapons with impunity whose armies rain bombs on the imprisoned whose apologists equate oppressor and oppressed defending those who punish… Read More

Here are the remarks that Jay Stanton offered at Tzedek Chicago’s Passover seder last night. Jay was formerly Tzedek’s rabbinical intern – and I’m delighted to announ… Read More

photo: AP Here is an excerpt from my new Passover seder supplement, “Olives and Maror – The Great Return March:” And so, on this night of Passover we affirm: we cannot gath… Read More

The invitation for our Root Causes Pilgrimage to Honduras came from Radio Progreso, a Jesuit-owned radio station based in the city of El Progreso. As one of the few independent media v… Read More

photo credit Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters March 30, 2019 Even as bullets hit bodies their dream of return rose up to the heavens like black tire smoke curling dancing then disappearing into… Read More

Honduran street protest against 2009 coup  (photo: DH Noticias) It was my honor last week to travel with 75 delegates representing diverse religious traditions and advocacy organization… Read More

Honduras migrants in Guatemala, Oct. 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Oliver de Ros) Exactly one week from today I’ll be embarking, together with over 70 delegates representing diverse religious tr… Read More

Tzedakah saves from death. (Proverbs 10:2) For religious Jews, Friday is typically devoted to spiritual and practical preparation for the Sabbath. Those who are traditionally observant will… Read More

The Jewish interwebs have been abuzz regarding Yair Rosenberg’s December 17 Tablet article about a New York Times Book Review interview with Alice Walker in which she praise… Read More

Cross-posted with Truthout Interfaith clergy lead demonstrators through Border Field State Park en route to the San Diego – Tijuana border (photo: Steve Pavey, Hope in Focus, stev… Read More

Cross-posted with Truthout (photo credit: Newsweek) Amid the swirl of responses to the deadly Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in October was the New York Post report of a Colorado gu… Read More

In her recent op-ed “War Must Never Be Inevitable, Even Between Israel and Hamas,” (Ha’aretz, 11/12/18) Rabbi Jill Jacobs suggests a Jewish religious frame for “avoi… Read More

Cross-posted with Truthout  (UPDATED) MARK DIXON / FLICKR If the charge of antisemitism becomes a tactic to suppress open criticism and debate on the State of Israel, its practices… Read More

Crossposted at Truthout photo via Getty images Like so many, when I first heard the news of the horrific shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue Saturday, I went immediately to the news… Read More

I’m thrilled to announce that my new chapbook, “Songs After the Revolution: New Jewish Liturgy” has just been published by my congregation, Tzedek Chicago. I’ve been… Read More

This Yom Kippur Martyrology ritual was written by Tzedek Chicago rabbinic intern May Ye and myself and was used in observance in our Yom Kippur service last week. Reader: It is traditional… Read More

One year ago, on the morning after Yom Kippur, I traveled to Palestine in my capacity as a staff person for the American Friends Service Committee. Among other things, my trip included seve… Read More

Writing topical High Holiday sermons is a process fraught with peril. It’s common knowledge among rabbis that if you sit down to write at the beginning of the summer, chances are pret… Read More

My weekly message to congregants at Tzedek Chicago: In this week’s Torah portion, Ki Tetzei, we read: If a man has a wayward and defiant son, who does not heed his father or mother an… Read More

My weekly message to congregants at Tzedek Chicago: Yesterday I read a devastating blog post by Abdalrahim Alfarra, a Palestinian Gazan activist who wrote about his cousin Ali Firwana, who… Read More

I’ve just returned from a weekend at the border in the southern Arizona desert where I participated in a delegation of 60 faith leaders from around the country in an initiative called… Read More

(photo: Tucson Sentinel) This weekend, I’ll be joining 60 faith leaders from around the country in southern Arizona to witness and respond to the suffering on our border though “… Read More

photo credit: NateHallinan.com The Jewish festival of Tisha B’Av begins this Saturday evening, July 21. In anticipation of the day, I’m reposting the new poetic take on Lamentati… Read More

Dear Rabbi Bachman, While I share your admiration for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent victory in New York’s 14th Congressional District, I am dismayed by the heavy-handed way… Read More

I continue to be troubled by Rabbi Jill Jacobs’ recent Washington Post op-ed, “How to tell when criticism of Israel is actually anti-Semitism,” and frankly disappoint… Read More