Spotlight on CLAL Archive

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CLAL in the News

By Andrew Silow-Carroll, Communications Director

Members of the CLAL faculty are frequently requested as commentators on a broad range of trends affecting the North American Jewish community and religious movements at large. Below are recent articles featuring CLAL's analysis of Judaism, religion, spirituality and the search for meaning in an increasingly complex world.

CLAL's perspective on marking the new millennium was featured in a number of newspapers nationwide. CLAL President Irwin Kula told the Columbus Dispatch (Dec. 31) that recognition of the event is an important opportunity from a Jewish perspective. "As opposed to being persecuted by non-Jews, we now are free," said Rabbi Kula. "That's a tremendous change in this millennium."
(Link:http://libpub.dispatch.com/cgi-bin/slwebcli.pl?DBLIST=cd99&DOCNUM=27169)

Rabbi Daniel Brenner, CLAL Senior Teaching Fellow, told the Baltimore Sun (Dec. 31) that the millennium is "a moment when humans will never understand themselves the same way again." Brenner added that the "Jewish community has an opportunity to mark this moment in a traditional Jewish way, which is to combine celebration with some serious reflection on what the future will bring."
(Link:http://www.sunspot.net/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?section=archive&pagename=story&storyid=1150210207520)

An essay by CLAL Associate Rabbi Rachel Sabbath that originally appeared in Derekh CLAL was quoted in a Dec. 3 Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatch on millennium preparations. "This next millennium, replete with all its hype, gives us an opportunity to look out at the world and to try and make sense of what we see, to attempt to clarify what we want the future to hold," wrote Rabbi Sabath.
(Link: http://jta.virtualjerusalem.com/index.exe?9912031)

An essay by Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, CLAL's Director of Leadership and Communities, was published in the Dec. 31 Baltimore Jewish Times. "Jewish tradition has always made the bold claim that if something is part of human experience, it can be given expression within Judaism," wrote Rabbi Hirschfield. "That's not to say that every 'outside' influence will be treated the same. Some we will embrace completely, others we will shape and modify. Shabbat will remain Shabbat, which for many of us is a day of rest and renewal, when we bless ourselves and our people with life and abundance. Yet at certain moments throughout history, Shabbat is not only Shabbat. This New Year's Eve is such a moment."

CLAL's Millennium Resource card, distributed to 40,000 CLAL supporters, was reprinted as an op-ed in a number of Jewish newspapers across the country, including the Connecticut Jewish Ledger and the Wilmington (Del.) Jewish Voice.

In a Dec. 9 Washington Post profile of professional wrestler Bill Goldberg, Rabbi Kula described the widespread acceptance of the Jewish champion as a "profound thing." The applause for Goldberg from non-Jews "affirms that America is a fundamentally different, fundamentally accepting place," said Rabbi Kula.
(Link: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-s…te/1999-12/09/1711-120999-idx.html)

Rabbi David Nelson, CLAL Senior Teaching Fellow, was featured in an article on Jewish post-denominationalism that appeared in the New York Jewish Week. Rabbi Nelson, who was ordained a Reform rabbi but makes synagogue and education choices across the spectrum of Jewish movements, told the newspaper that "I construct, I synthesize a Jewish identity for me that in its various parts looks Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or Renewal. The advantage is it feels deeply, personally mine."