Words of Light: 27 Voices, 27 Messages and Countless Blessings for 5781
L.A. communal leaders offered words of inspiration, resilience and redemption to their communities leading up to the High Holy Days. Here’s what they said.
L.A. communal leaders offered words of inspiration, resilience and redemption to their communities leading up to the High Holy Days. Here’s what they said.
It was more than just the usual wait for the gathering to settle into silence; it was Kanefsky taking a moment before making an important announcement to his congregation that, come August, its clergy would include a new “spiritual leadership” position.
Rabbi Don Goor of Temple Judea and Cantor Evan Kent of Temple Isaiah announced to their congregations on Jan. 11 that they will be moving to Israel next summer. Both will leave behind successful careers in Los Angeles as they jump into the rich but contentious world of liberal Judaism in Israel.
About two weeks before she died, Debbie Friedman stood with Rabbi Joy Levitt at the piano in Levitt’s Manhattan apartment, and she shared with her friend a melody that the legendary singer and composer would never have the chance to record.
The members of an interfaith group of clergy who ministered to Occupy Los Angeles protesters throughout the two-month occupation of the lawn around Los Angeles City Hall are objecting to what they call a distressing “level of violence and brutality” used by the 1,400 Los Angeles Police Department officers who cleared the encampment from City Hall Park in the early morning hours of Nov. 30.
Since the beginning of this month, a group of Angelenos has gathered near downtown’s City Hall as part of Occupy Los Angeles, its version of the much-publicized Occupy Wall Street — a protest movement calling for reforms to the U.S. political and economic systems.
Jewish clergy and educators lobbied Congress to maintain food aid to foreign countries.
More than 500 clergy signed a letter to President Obama urging clemency for Jonathan Pollard. The letter was delivered a day before Prime Minister Benjanim Netanyahu reportedly sent a letter to Obama issuing a formal clemency request. Netanyahu was scheduled to read his letter Tuesday evening to a Knesset plenum discussion. \”After more than two and a half decades in prison, Mr. Pollard\’s health is declining,\” reads the letter sent Monday from rabbis representing all streams, as well as a number of leading Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy. \”He has repeatedly expressed remorse for his actions, and by all accounts has served as a model inmate. Commuting his sentence to time served would be a wholly appropriate exercise of your power of clemency — as well as a matter of basic fairness and American justice. It would also represent a clear sense of compassion and reconciliation — a sign of hope much needed in today\’s world of tension and turmoil.\”
Christian, Jewish and Muslim clergy lead rally protesting Chinese persecution of Falun Gong and China\’s involvement in Sudan.
In 2006, Rabbi Nancy Myers of Westminster\’s Temple Beth David used her Rosh Hashanah sermon to address the horrors of the Abu Ghraib scandals.
She was about to make a point about acting morally as Jews when a congregant walked down the sanctuary\’s aisle with his hands crossed in a time-out signal. Myers, new at the time to the Reform synagogue, thought the interruption was because someone had had a heart attack, so she stopped talking.