This week Rabbi Brad Hirschfield was the keynote speaker at Lomed, an annual conference sponsored by the Board of Jewish Education and UJA Federation of New York for 37 congregations including rabbis, educators, and lay leaders from the New York area. The conference brought together 200 participants for this interdenominational initiative.

"...Sexual misconduct by clergy is as old as religion itself, but what if the larger problem is not so much with the clergy as it is with believers who always seem to be surprised by such behavior, and even more disturbingly, slow to respond to it when they finally admit it has occurred?..."

"...With clarity, sobriety, and eloquence that should give every American reason to rise above the heated conflicts erupting around our country and to be proud of what our country genuinely stands for, the President asked us to do something difficult, noble and right: hold in our minds and hearts multiple truths. ..."

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From Irwin Kula’s blog on The Huffington Post

Clal Director Rabbi Tsvi Blanchard returned to the Faculty of Law at the prestigious Humboldt University in Berlin this spring/summer to teach for the third straight year Jewish and comparative law. While there, he was named the Meyer Struckman Professor of Jewish Law, which is an ongoing position.

" the recent 'Statement of Principles on the Place of Jews With a Homosexual Orientation in Our Community' represents such a long-awaited milestone...There is a new mood in the Orthodox community. While even a few years ago the prevailing rhetoric was often caustic and harsh, today most Orthodox rabbis are empathetic, or at least moving in that direction...."

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By Steven Greenberg from The Forward Opinion

In Central Europe today Budapest has the largest Jewish community, with 22 synagogues and prayer houses, secondary schools, a hospital, and two homes for the elderly. But what does it mean to be Jewish living in this historic city and how has the community fared?

"...‘Compassionate leadership is leadership that is always learning from the side they disagree with,’ Kula said. ‘So how does one bring together openness and deep commitment (to one’s personal views)?’....
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By Laura McCrystal from The Chautauquan Daily, 7/9/10

"...The Sisterhood, a Forward blog devoted to what it describes as "women's issues, has published its own list of 50 influential rabbis to parallel the one featured for the last four years in Newsweek. And like all such lists, the composers and the criteria they use are actually far more interesting than the people on the list - and I have been on Newsweek's since its inception..."

When we remember the past, is it in ways that are painful and stop us from moving forward, or do we take those lessons and use them to find greater meaning and purpose in life? The Triumphant Spirit, a piercingly beautiful book of photographs and personal stories of survivors, looks at that question again and again, always affirming life, creating hope, and celebrating the human spirit. Newly released and reprinted by Clal in partnership with acclaimed photojournalist Nick Del Calzo, the book challenges us to remember one of the darkest times in history while embracing the future.

"Rabbi Irwin Kula, a leading thinker in the field of religious pluralism, shares his insights about the effects and causes of unemployment in religious institutions and communities...[Kula says} ‘It turns out the existing religious, synagogue/church business model is not going to be sustainable. We’re going to have closures like GM dealerships over the next decade.’"