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Channel: On My Mind: Arnie Eisen » Judaism
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At West Point

West Point cadets, courtesy of West Point Public Affairs. / 20 Heshvan 5772 I spent a day at West Point last week—meeting Jewish and non-Jewish cadets, seeing the sights, talking about leadership...

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West Point, Judaism, and the Languages of Faith

/ 5 Kislev 5772 My posting about the visit I made to West Point in early November garnered a lot of response—and two comments in particular got me thinking more about the points I had raised. The...

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Distancing From Israel

/25 Kislev 5772 The American Jewish Committee sponsored a consultation last week on the subject, “Are Young Committed American Jews Distancing from Israel?” I was asked to present my view of the...

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Rabbinic Training Institute 2012

Prayer and Learning in the JTS Courtyard / 24 Tevet 5772 I spent much of last week in the company of about 70 Conservative rabbis—participants in the annual workshop sponsored by JTS that is known...

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The Magic of Jewish Summer Camp

/ 25 Adar 5772 Amy Skopp Cooper, national assistant director of the National Ramah Commission of JTS, director of Ramah Day Camp in Nyack, New York, and 2011 winner of the prestigious Covenant Award,...

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Belfast and Jerusalem: “Something There Is That Doesn’t Love a Wall”

On the day a couple weeks ago that Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Washington DC to resume the long-stalled peace process, my wife and I toured Belfast, site of another intractable conflict...

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Bridging the Secular/Religious Divide in Ourselves and the World

The Yom Kippur liturgy holds out a special welcome, which I want to reinforce, to the tens of thousands of Jews who will attend High Holiday services this year, and perhaps fast all or part of the day...

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Chancellor Eisen in Haaretz: New Pew Report, “Reengaging American Jews—Before...

I was warned a few weeks ago that the Pew Research Center survey of American Jews would be cause for depression, if not alarm. The warning reminded me of the old Jewish joke about the telegram sent by...

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The Meaning of This Moment

I’m honored to be here today as JTS’s chancellor to celebrate the 100th anniversary of United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s activism in building Jewish communities in North America, and I’m truly...

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Conservative Judaism: Observations and Expectations

As JTS graduates continue to take their place in the professional world and put Torah into action, the conversation that has been Judaism for millennia expands exponentially. Does what they see in the...

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Hanukkah Miracles at the White House

Pizmon—the JTS-Columbia-Barnard a cappella group—performing at the White House. I was puzzled when I received the invitation from the President and First Lady to celebrate Hanukkah at the White House...

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Israel in White and Gray

The snow in Israel—and me—at the Wall The story that dominated news and conversation during my first week in Israel this past December was the snow. A foot and a half fell in Jerusalem in the course of...

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Calling All Rabbis

I post this blog at a moment when the Jewish community in North America urgently needs good rabbis. If you are considering the rabbinate as a vocation or have toyed with the idea in the past or are...

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Educating for Human Wholeness

“As Interest Fades in the Humanities, Colleges Worry,” reported the New York Times a few months back. “Some 45 percent of the faculty members in Stanford’s major undergraduate division are clustered in...

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The Story of Israel

At least one thing has changed between last Yom Ha’atzma’ut and this one in the relationship between many American Jews and Israel: we have read and thought about two challenging and highly personal...

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Jerusalem and Zionism on Edge

Jerusalem was on edge this week, its Jews fearful of the next knifing or shooting that would come soon and without warning; its Arabs subject to added inspections and fearful of police and Jewish...

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Commentary Symposium: The Jewish Future

The impossibility of predicting the long-term Jewish future in America or anywhere else was highlighted for me recently by the announcement of a scholarly conference devoted to the question of whether...

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