Free Republic

The reading of the Torah ended, and Cantor Charles D. Osborne led the congregation at Temple Emanuel in Newton in a poignant prayer for renewal. It was time for the sermon. Rabbi Michelle Robinson rose and delivered the most stirring sermon of her young career -- an impassioned demand that the Conservative movement in Judaism sanction same-sex unions and other Jewish rituals for gays and lesbians. If movement leaders, who are in the midst of a deep debate over these issues, disagree, Emanuel, one of the wealthiest and most influential Conservative synagogues in New England, should sanctify such unions anyway,...

In a closed-door meeting this week in an undisclosed site near Baltimore, a committee of Jewish legal experts who set policy for Conservative Judaism will consider whether to lift their movement's ban on gay rabbis and same-sex unions. In 1992, this same group, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, declared that Jewish law clearly prohibited commitment ceremonies for same-sex couples and the admission of openly gay people to rabbinical or cantorial schools. The vote was 19 to 3, with one abstention. Since then, Conservative Jewish leaders say, they have watched as relatives, congregation members and even fellow rabbis publicly...

Jews who support the Christian right are "Uncle Jakes." So says a pro-Israeli Jewish official in his recent column for the Israel Policy Forum, a pro-Israel organization. "Uncle Jake" is M. J. Rosenberg's term for Jewish equivalent of "Uncle Tom." Just as the left sees conservative blacks as traitors to African-Americans, so it sees conservative Jews as traitors to the Jewish people. I am the "Uncle Jake" most criticized in the Rosenberg column. That a Jew on the left would use this term to describe Jews who support conservative Christians gives one an idea of how irrational, how hysterical are...

It's not an easy thing to do for Republicans -- winning the support of Jewish Americans. However, President Bush seems to be making headway into this traditionally liberal Democrat political demographic, and it's his no-holds-barred approach to battling the global terrorism threat that is helping him win Jewish converts. "He is the first president to understand the world in terms of terrorism," longtime Democratic voter Stuart Weil, a tropical fish farmer from Fresno told the Los Angeles Times. Not only is the ponytailed Weil voting for Bush this year, he's urging his friends to do the same. That's quite a...

America is in the midst of a new Great Awakening. It's the mainstream media, prompted by excitement over the Mel Gibson film "The Passion of the Christ," waking up to the fact that the country still has an enormous block of orthodox Christians. You can sense the bemused astonishment behind some of the press reports: "Didn't all of these people slink away in embarrassment forevermore after the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925?" Sorry. They didn't. And it is impossible to understand what seems certain to be the commercial success of "The Passion," or -- more importantly -- to understand American...

Dec. 23, 2003 Close the religious councils By MICHAEL BOYDEN As we approach the beginning of 2004, the chances that religious councils will be abolished by the end of this December seem increasingly remote. Not that anyone should be surprised. All too often, the Promised Land turns out, in fact, to be the land of unfulfilled promises. Although seldom heard of - except when they decide to go on strike and close their doors to those whom they are supposed to serve - the religious councils are meant to be there to meet our needs. The Jewish Religious Services Law,...