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CLAL - The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership
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The Washington Post-Newsweek’s "On Faith": A Conversation on Religion with Jon Meacham & Sally Quinn
• Irwin Kula’s post
• Brad Hirschfield’s post:
"Religious Problems Demand Religious Solutions"
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Brad Hirschfield’s blog on "On Faith":
"Blame Nobel, Not Obama"
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Irwin Kula blogs on Huffington Post Living

• "A New Fetish: Apology Voyeurism"
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Windows & Doors, Brad Hirschfield’s daily blog on Beliefnet

• "Mourning and Consolation on Facebook, and Other Sacred Spaces"
• "Halloween 2009: Tips from a Rabbi About How To Celebrate"

 

eCLAL                                                                      October 22, 2009
 
Our Addiction to Reality TV
October 22, 2009
Irwin Kula is interviewed about the hoax of the boy and the balloon on these programs:.
Listen...
The Mario Solis Marich Show, 10/21/09, Progressive Talk AM 760 in Denver, to re-air on 10/25/09 in Los Angeles on Progressive Talk AM 1150


Listen...
The Erik & Jack Attack, CRN, 10/20/09


Aaron in the Afternoons, 10/22/09, KLFD,St. Cloud, Minn

From Clal
Stupidity — not hate — in S.C. GOP
October 22, 2009
"Two South Carolina Republican officials have apologized for defending U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint by likening him to Jews who ‘take care of the pennies.’..." More...

From Brad Hirschfield’s blog in the Washington Post-Newsweek’s "On Faith" Column
Kula on Understanding Letterman and Our Inner Self
October 14, 2009
"Why such overwhelming obsession with the David Letterman affair? To best understand this Late Night saga, we turned to Top Jew Rabbi Irwin Kula, author, media commentator and expert in Sacred Messiness and Partial Truths...."
More...

By Mark Pearlman of
Jinsider from The Jewish Week
Hirschfield on The Dennis Miller Show: Obama’s Nobel, and Israeli Security
October 13, 2009
Brad Hirschfield and Dennis Miller discuss Obama’s Nobel peace prize, Iran, Israel and the U.S..
Listen...

The Dennis Miller Show, 10/13/09
Hirschfield on Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize
October 12, 2009
The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama is both a mockery and a lesson in peace and hope.
More...

WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio
Hirschfield on the Nobel to Obama
October 9, 2009
The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama makes a mockery of the prize.
More...

The Lars Larson Show
Could Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize have a greater purpose?
October 9, 2009
"[Brad Hirschfield] suggested it also could serve a greater purpose. ‘A brighter possibility is that they gave him the award for being the first black president of the United States and for the healing that that accomplishment represents,’ Hirschfield said. ‘But if that is the case, the award should go to the American public. It’s about his presidency, not his accomplishments.’..."
More...

From The Seeker: A Personal and Professional Quest for Truth By Manya Brachear from the Chicago Tribune
Rabbi Sirbu Teaches at NYU on The Intersection of Spirituality and Social Work
October 19, 2009
Clal’s Rabbi Rebecca W. Sirbu, Director of Rabbis Without Borders, teaches a class at New York University’s School of Social Work with Dr. Duy Nguyen on the intersection between spirituality and social work. The class will look at how to do spiritual assessments.
More...

By Rebecca W. Sirbu from Clal
Words of Bonds with Janet Kirchheimer
October 15, 2009
Bringing together Holocaust survivors and descendants of slaves, on Sunday, Oct. 18, 6 p.m. at Madison Square Garden’s MSG Theater, Words of Bonds will hold a documentary screening and tribute dinner at which Ms. Kirchheimer will speak.

From Clal
Paths to Peace: Rabbi Kula and Terry Taylor
October 9, 2009
Irwin Kula joins Terry Taylor, executive director of Louisville, KY based Interfaith Paths to Peace, for a discussion about their books. Rabbi Kula’s Yearnings and Terry Taylor’s A Spirituality of Brokenness will be discussed as well. More...

From Community from the Jewish Community of Louisville
The Arrest of Roman Polanski
October 1, 2009
Rabbi Kula talks with Jon Grayson about the arrest of Roman Polanski, Hollywood’s response, and the profound disconnect between Hollywood and the rest of America. Kula says that to suggest Polanski receive a lesser punishment because he is a Holocaust survivor is an abuse of biography.
Listen...

From "Overnight America with Jon Grayson," (KMOX, St. Louis)
Hollywood’s view of the Polanski Arrest
September 30, 2009
Rabbi Kula discusses the social ramifications of the Polanski news with Paul Stern and Jack Roberts.
Listen...

From "The Erik & Jack Attack!" on Cable Radio Network
Rabbis in Recession
September 30, 2009
"...the economy can only help accelerate the kind of change already envisioned by ... Rabbis Without Borders, founded this spring to encourage and train rabbis to offer Jewish leadership and insight to a broader cross-section of the public. ‘Rabbis Without Borders was founded because it was clear even before the recession that rabbis needed to change and grow in order to respond to the postmodern world,’ said Rabbi Rebecca W. Sirbu, its director. ‘Jews are not found only in synagogues; in fact many Jews never enter a synagogue or Jewish institution. No matter what the economic situation is rabbis need to be more creative in how we teach the meaning of Jewish wisdom.’..."
More...

By Lynn Harris from Tablet Magazine
Rituals of Yom Kippur with Rabbi Kula
September 25, 2009
The central ritual on Yom Kippur, besides prayer itself, that’s most well-known, is fasting. What fasting does is it says I’m not going to concentrate on my physical body right now. I’m going to concentrate on a different kind of food. Rather than nutrients for my body, I’m going to concentrate on the nutrients for my spirit, and my heart, and my ethical way. ...
View interview...

From Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
Opening Doors On Yom Kippur
September 24, 2009
"Yom Kippur is ultimately a joyous day, promising forgiveness, atonement and reconciliation for all who seek it. But in classically Jewish fashion, the attainment of such things hinges on genuinely confronting and addressing our deepest fears, angers and hurts. Yom Kippur, as one of my nephews remarked when I explained this to him, is not for ‘wusses.’..."
More...

By Brad Hirschfield, Special to The Jewish Week
Apology Porn
September 25, 2009
"...Our attraction to ‘apology porn,’ these big, public mea culpas and confessions of sins that are so very none of our business, are an indication of our collective need both to be forgiven and to offer forgiveness for wrongs in our own lives that we’d rather not think about ... Rabbi [Kula] says....."
More...

By Cathleen Falsani from The Chicago Sun Times
Spare Us The Empty Apologies; We’re Not The Ones Hurt
September 20, 2009
"With Yom Kippur—the day of atonement, prayer, and fasting—arriving next week, maybe this is a good time to examine public atonements (or apologies, which, says Kula, ‘are not for the public’). In fact, when South Carolina Gov. Sanford cried over his infidelity in front of microphones in June, he should have been crying in front of the person he hurt most, his wife, Kula said...."
More...

By Susan Campbell from The Hartford Courant
A New Fetish: Apology Voyeurism
September 18, 2009
"The slew of public apologies over the past week or so from Joe Wilson, Serena Williams, and Kanye West along with the apologies during the past year from Eliot Spitzer and Mark Sanford—each offered with different degrees of sincerity and histrionics—have turned us into apology voyeurs...."
More...

By Irwin Kula from The HuffingtonPost.com
Speaking of Hitler: Politicians on All Sides Behaving Badly
October 14, 2009
"We seem to have endless appetite for comparisons to Hitler, Nazis and the Holocaust, and like all forms of gluttony, it’s making us very sick. It’s neither a Democratic thing nor a Republican thing, it’s a simply and disturbingly a tragic fact of contemporary American life...."
More...
By Brad Hirschfield from Beliefnet.com’s Windows & Doors
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Clal Selects Inaugural Class for Its Ground-Breaking
Rabbis Without Borders Fellowship Program

June 5, 2009
"Rabbis Without Borders (RWB), CLAL’s new initiative to help rabbis make Jewish wisdom accessible to the wider American public, selected its first group of fellows for its competitive rabbinic fellowship program...."
More...
By Judy Epstein from CLAL

For more about RWB and Fellows around the country:
New Jersey Jewish Standard...
Detroit Jewish News...
The Jewish Daily Forward...
Washington Jewish Week...
Metro West New Jersey Jewish News...
New Mexico Jewish Link...
South Florida Sun-Sentinel...
St. Louis Jewish Light...
St. Louis Dispatch...
Santa Fe New Mexican...

American Pilgrimage with Rabbi Brad Hirschfield
June 24, 2009
Aired on Bridges TV—American Muslim TV Network, the series provides an in-depth look at the issues dividing people of faith. In these episodes, Rabbi Brad Hirschfield speaks with various Imams from around the country. In this latest episode, Rabbi Hirschfield speaks with Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, who is the Director of Outreach at the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Virginia.
View American Pilgrimage episode 12...
Hirschfield and Kula: Intelligent Talk Radio
Obama Nobel Peace Prize, and David Letterman and Roman Polanski Scandals
October 17, 2009
Listen to Brad and Irwin as they discuss whether the Nobel Peace Prize award to President Obama is an indication that it has become another political issue? And with regard to the scandals, are we getting confessions or just the standard apology of self justification?....
Be sure to check the website each week for more riffing with the rabbis on topics of the day.
Listen ....
From Hirschfieldandkula.com, broadcast on KXL, Portland, OR
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