“Liberal reform Jew” = “Six-pointed unitarian”.
(From a non-observant son of a lapsed orthodox Jew.)
(From a non-observant son of a lapsed orthodox Jew.)
Well, its never too late to start observing.
And the Reform Jews are drifting towards actually believing in God rather than the Democrat party only. Honestly, as a Jew who loves attending a Reform Temple.. you may have a bit of a point, but I have found my congregation to be much more giving, caring and respecting than any Unitarian congregation.
The 1999 Reform platform is not 180 degrees from the Pittsburgh platform of its founding but ultimately the Reform movement is on a awesome path of increasing faith and rational discourse. And this in spite of the fact that the URJ and Rabbi Yoffee and the leadership seem to be completely clueless about everything else.
I may have a minority view, but I know that no position in the Temple is barred to me, and I have always been welcomed with open arms even as they scratched their heads about my Patriot Guard pins and such.
My friend who I decided not to have a knockdown drag out about Cindy Sheehan, whom he reveres, loaned me his truck to carry flags to a Soldier's funeral when my car broke down without a second thought. We don't see eye to eye about politics but we do about God. And at Temple thats what matters to me.
That's funny. I haven't heard that take in over 40 years. We lived in a very Jewish/Ethnic Catholic neighborhood growing up, and my mother was a Unitarian (extremely conservative though -- figure that one out.) Anyhow, when the Orthodox Rabbi who lived next door heard she was a Unitarian he asked: "Are you a Jewnitarian?" she didn't quite know how to respond to that. When she told him she'd grown up Presbyterian he explained how fashionable it was for the reformed Jews in the neighborhood to try Unitarianism for a while. They got along well; the Rabbi always kidded my mother about really being a Jew.